• We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas from all at Golf Monthly. Thank you for sharing your 2025 with us!

Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

GB72 said:
Any idea when the other vaccines are starting to be distributed as I guess that may help up the pace even more.
Click to expand...
No idea about other vaccines but I read yesterday that the UK wants to ramp up to 4 million doses a week from now on.
Of course, some of that would be 2nd doses going forward, but the speed of 1st doses shoul be maintained as they double up the doses per week numbers.
Also, moderne is now testing on children in the US.

It all seems to go in the right direction.
 
Ethan said:
The chances are that they are unrelated to the vax, the debate really is more about whether it is reasonable to pause and assess the events, which I think is basic regulatory oversight, rather than whether it is a true signal. The majority of these adverse event investigations end up negative, but you don't know at the start which one will or won't.

It is plausible, because the vax induces an immune response and part of that is inflammatory and could cause inflammation in vessels. The AZ uses a viral vector which can itself induce an additional immune response and an inflammatory response. However, a problem is very unlikely, you are more likely to crash your car on the way to the vax centre, and the harm caused by Covid is considerably greater. But the regulators are right to take it seriously.

I expect that they will give an all-clear by the end of the week or soon after.
Click to expand...


Ethan. How can they find out so quickly that the vaccine does or does not give
People blood clots?
 
Ethan said:
I would suggest she says that the issue is one of proportion. The risk of these clots in the normal population is very low. it is not known if the vaccine increases that risk, but if it does, it only raises it to a number which is still very low. The risks of Covid, on the other hand can be very high if you are older or have other health issues. There is really no comparison between the two risks, so anyone offered the vaccine should accept it, particularly those at higher risk. The parallel is air safet. People get very concerned about air safety, but plane crashes are very very rare. There is more risk driving to the airport. Even so, massive effort goes into ensuring air safety and every crash receives huge attention and investigation. Planes are very safe, and so are these vaccines. Accept the first one you are offered.
Click to expand...
Thanks @Ethan

So we sat down for lunch an hour ago - and this morning's difficult call was in respect the reported reduced immune response after being given the Pfizer jab in cancer patients with tumours . She knows the study was small and the age group was elderly and that everything in respect of the vaccines and side-effects etc is under study and review. But the caller wanted to know exactly the size of the study; details of the characteristics and age ranges of the participants; the nature of the tumours; relationship with chemo drugs; the impact of the gap between 1st and 2nd Pfizer jab etc. Really detailed stuff.

And to top it all the caller's concern was in respect of prostate cancer. My wife's a breast cancer nurse specialist not an oncologist...she finds it deeply frustrating the expectation of callers that a breast cancer charity helpline should have all this sort of information to hand; and to be able to explain it all in detail etc. and for prostate cancer...but she can cope with that - the big problem for her is that she worries that that the caller will log a complaint that my wife was unable to answer her questions...and that is stressful...
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Thanks @Ethan

So we sat down for lunch an hour ago - and this morning's difficult call was in respect the reported reduced immune response after being given the Pfizer jab in cancer patients with tumours . She knows the study was small and the age group was elderly and that everything in respect of the vaccines and side-effects etc is under study and review. But the caller wanted to know exactly the size of the study; details of the characteristics and age ranges of the participants; the nature of the tumours; relationship with chemo drugs; the impact of the gap between 1st and 2nd Pfizer jab etc. Really detailed stuff.

And to top it all the caller's concern was in respect of prostate cancer. My wife's a breast cancer nurse specialist not an oncologist...she finds it deeply frustrating the expectation of callers that a breast cancer charity helpline should have all this sort of information to hand; and to be able to explain it all in detail etc. and for prostate cancer...but she can cope with that - the big problem for her is that she worries that that the caller will log a complaint that my wife was unable to answer her questions...and that is stressful...
Click to expand...

If the caller logs a complaint that your wife couldn't answer, surely the recipient/investigator of the complaint will know that it in no way pertains to any fault on your wife's part, and that the caller is making an irrelevant ( to the charity) complaint.
The reasons you list as to why this is , will be,( should be ), explained to the caller and there's an end to it.
Your wife , and yourself , are worrying unnecessarily.
That said, I can see why a cancer sufferer worried as to whether their jab is protecting them, may call a cancer helpline. That's all they may see, cancer helpline, not realising that the words prostate and breast make all the difference?

As an aside, I saw the Dr who did this research about the limited effectiveness of the jab in cancer sufferers with lowered immunities- presumably because of the treatments they are on-.
She was very cogent and clear and it was obvious that the authorities should urgently act to have the research ratified or otherwise, and if she was right, then the second dose for those patients should be given ASAP- like , yesterday!
Seems like the first dose gave only 39 per cent protection, but that went up to 90 per cent after the second dose.
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Thanks @Ethan

So we sat down for lunch an hour ago - and this morning's difficult call was in respect the reported reduced immune response after being given the Pfizer jab in cancer patients with tumours . She knows the study was small and the age group was elderly and that everything in respect of the vaccines and side-effects etc is under study and review. But the caller wanted to know exactly the size of the study; details of the characteristics and age ranges of the participants; the nature of the tumours; relationship with chemo drugs; the impact of the gap between 1st and 2nd Pfizer jab etc. Really detailed stuff.

And to top it all the caller's concern was in respect of prostate cancer. My wife's a breast cancer nurse specialist not an oncologist...she finds it deeply frustrating the expectation of callers that a breast cancer charity helpline should have all this sort of information to hand; and to be able to explain it all in detail etc. and for prostate cancer...but she can cope with that - the big problem for her is that she worries that that the caller will log a complaint that my wife was unable to answer her questions...and that is stressful...
Click to expand...

Cancer patients are a wide ranging group and some of the effects vary between the different types, and where people are in their journey. It isn't surprising that some cancer patients have a reduced response to vaccination, particularly right after chemo, say. Their immune system needs to be responsive to make the vaccine effective and if it is not responding fully it will affect the protection from the vaccine. But there will still be some response. In HIV patients, who also have a reduced immune response, fewer of them didn't get Covid but many still got the effect of a much milder course.

Much of the stuff the caller is asking is not full tested, and is really questions for her (or her relative's) oncologist.
 
Swinglowandslow said:
Ethan. How can they find out so quickly that the vaccine does or does not give
People blood clots?
Click to expand...

They will look at it from both ends. One is looking at the broad population to see whether there is a noticeable spike in clot-related reports overall. There does not appear to be a major effect, although the Pfizer and AZ vaccines may have been given to different populations with different background risks.

The other side is looking at the individual cases and seeing if there is anything unusual about them, characteristic features of drug-related effects (there are some cardinal features), whether the patient type is typical for this event and so on. If something weird has been observed, and some reports suggest the cases had unusual clinical features, then that points to something new being involved.

The background concern is not whether an odd person here or there among millions gets a weird side effect - it happens, but whether these cases are the start of a flood of cases. I had this in a clinical trial of several thousand patients where a couple of patients receiving quite a powerful medicine developed a nasty drug related side effect. These two patients were among the longest serving in the study, so our concern was that there was a time-dependent effect and loads more patients might get the same in time. So we stopped a £100 million clinical programme and cancelled the approval application. It probably cost the company billions overall in revenue as well as the share price crashing when it was announced.
 
Italians not happy:

In Italy, the director general of the medicines authority called the decision to suspend the vaccine "political".
Nicola Magrini told Italian daily newspaper la Repubblica that the vaccine was safe and that the benefit to risk ratio of the jab was "widely positive".

He may have a point if the decision isn’t being made by the medical profession.
 
Swinglowandslow said:
If the caller logs a complaint that your wife couldn't answer, surely the recipient/investigator of the complaint will know that it in no way pertains to any fault on your wife's part, and that the caller is making an irrelevant ( to the charity) complaint.
The reasons you list as to why this is , will be,( should be ), explained to the caller and there's an end to it.
Your wife , and yourself , are worrying unnecessarily.
That said, I can see why a cancer sufferer worried as to whether their jab is protecting them, may call a cancer helpline. That's all they may see, cancer helpline, not realising that the words prostate and breast make all the difference?

As an aside, I saw the Dr who did this research about the limited effectiveness of the jab in cancer sufferers with lowered immunities- presumably because of the treatments they are on-.
She was very cogent and clear and it was obvious that the authorities should urgently act to have the research ratified or otherwise, and if she was right, then the second dose for those patients should be given ASAP- like , yesterday!
Seems like the first dose gave only 39 per cent protection, but that went up to 90 per cent after the second dose.
Click to expand...
What you say is all very true - and is exactly what I say to my wife - but that doesn't stop her worrying that she might say something 'wrong' or that irritates the caller. That the caller called in respect of a prostate cancer does not mean that her query cannot be addressed or worse - that it should be 'turned away' - in fact the helpline tries as best they can to help. There is no such thing as an OK complaint as they are all looked in to even although most complaints are ill-founded or unreasonable. But they are all logged.
 
Ethan said:
Cancer patients are a wide ranging group and some of the effects vary between the different types, and where people are in their journey. It isn't surprising that some cancer patients have a reduced response to vaccination, particularly right after chemo, say. Their immune system needs to be responsive to make the vaccine effective and if it is not responding fully it will affect the protection from the vaccine. But there will still be some response. In HIV patients, who also have a reduced immune response, fewer of them didn't get Covid but many still got the effect of a much milder course.

Much of the stuff the caller is asking is not full tested, and is really questions for her (or her relative's) oncologist.
Click to expand...
Exactly - and that is the message that must be put across without the nurse on the helpline seeming to the caller to be being dismissive or unhelpful - and some callers are very insistent and demanding...
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
What you say is all very true - and is exactly what I say to my wife - but that doesn't stop her worrying that she might say something 'wrong' or that irritates the caller. That the caller called in respect of a prostate cancer does not mean that her query cannot be addressed or worse - that it should be 'turned away' - in fact the helpline tries as best they can to help. There is no such thing as an OK complaint as they are all looked in to even although most complaints are ill-founded or unreasonable. But they are all logged.
Click to expand...

So she is worried and you worry about her being worried.

I know she wants to help but at what cost to her own health and yours?
 
A question for Ethan, are people already taking blood thinning meds like aspirin or warfarin less likely to have a blood clot ?.
I've been taking 75mg aspirin daily for 30 years.
 
bobmac said:
So she is worried and you worry about her being worried.

I know she wants to help but at what cost to her own health and yours?
Click to expand...
She loves her job. Giving something back to a charity that supports her colleagues and friends in the NHS breast cancer teams across the UK. She knows the huge load that the health charities carry in supporting the NHS.

Just sometimes it can be a bit stressy trying to satisfy the expectations of callers - and also quite often having to try and defuse unreasonable demands of the NHS - though also often recognising holes in what support and advice women have been given - providing pointers to how they can access what should be available to them. I just support as I must.

At the moment call volumes are high and more than 50% of callers have questions upon Covid-19 vaccination... And we know why. It's a complex and developing picture that is difficult to put across with the certainty that many cancer patients require.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top