Australians claim their new nasal spray protects against Covid-19 and “common cold” viruses

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-nasal-covid-effective-common-cold.html

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INNA-X is developed by the Australian biotech company Ena Respiratory and works by stimulating the innate immune system in the airways, the first line of defense against the invasion of respiratory viruses into the body. This immune priming makes it much more difficult for viruses such as rhinoviruses to take hold, cause serious symptoms and spread.

INNA-X has been also shown to be highly effective at reducing virus shedding of SARS-CoV-2 and human trials of Ena Respiratory's clinical candidate INNA-051 will begin in Australia in the coming weeks.

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The already available generic allergy nasal spray Azelastine (trade names Astepro or Omnivar) appears to protect against Covid-19

British medical journal publishes report that Russian 2 shot Covid-19 vaccine is 91% effective

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-russia-sputnik-vaccine-safe-effective.html

University of Nottingham says that it has discovered that the drug Thapsigargin is effective against many viruses.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-scientists-uncover-potential-antiviral-treatment.html

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The study, published in Viruses, shows that thapsigargin is a promising broad spectrum antiviral, highly effective against COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2), a common cold coronavirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the influenza A virus.

Given that acute respiratory virus infections caused by different viruses are clinically indistinguishable on presentation, an effective broad-spectrum that can target different virus types at the same time could significantly improve clinical management. An antiviral of this type could potentially be made available for community use to control active infection and its spread.

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Had a call from my doctor's office today and they just received their first batch of the vaccine. Wanted to know if I was interested. Well duh. Which arm?

Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine provides
- no protection in first 8 days, perhaps even makes patient more easy to infect,
- days 9 to 14 protection begins improving at a fast rate
-days 15 to 21 protection further improves to over 90%
the above comes from a British study of how the Pfizer vaccine performed on Israeli citizens.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-pfizer-shot-percent-effective-days.html

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The research team set out to estimate the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine after a single dose—by reanalysing real-world outcomes from Israel.

They used the data to see how the Israeli vaccination programme impacted case numbers, and went on to estimate vaccine effectiveness over time.

They found that after the initial vaccination—case numbers increased for eight days before declining to low levels by day 21.

Prof Hunter said: "Surprisingly, the daily incidence of cases increased strongly after vaccination till about day eight—approximately doubling. We don't know why there was this initial surge in infection risk but it may be related to people being less cautious about maintaining protective behaviours as soon as they have the injection.

"We found that the vaccine effectiveness was still pretty much zero until about 14 days after people were vaccinated. But then after day 14 immunity rose gradually day by day to about 90 percent at day 21 and then didn't improve any further. All the observed improvement was before any second injection.

"This shows that a single dose of vaccine is highly protective, although it can take up to 21 days to achieve this.

"And it supports the UK policy of extending the gap between doses by showing that a single dose can give a high level of protection.

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The risk of having a severe Covid case is greatly increased if you have gum disease

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-gum-disease-linked-covid-complications.html

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Of 568 COVID-19 patients in the study,
258 (45%) had gum disease.
After adjusting for age, sex, BMI, smoking status, and other conditions,
the odds ratios for COVID-19 complications in patients with gum disease,
compared to those without gum disease,
were 3.67 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.46–9.27) for all COVID-19 complications,
3.54 (95% CI 1.39–9.05) for ICU admission,
4.57 (95% CI 1.19–17.4) for ventilator requirement,
and 8.81 (95% CI 1.00–77.7) for death.

The authors stated: "If a causal link is established between periodontitis and increased rates of adverse outcomes in COVID-19 patients, then establishing and maintaining periodontal health may become an important part of the care of these patients."

Professor Mariano Sanz of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, one of the study's authors, noted that oral bacteria in patients with periodontitis can be inhaled and infect the lungs, particularly in those using a ventilator. He said: "This may contribute to the deterioration of patients with COVID-19 and raise the risk of death. Hospital staff should identify COVID-19 patients with periodontitis and use oral antiseptics to reduce transmission of bacteria."

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Mayo Clinic on Vitamin D and severe Covid-19

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-vitamin-d-deficiency-covid-.html

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A small, randomized study found that of 50 people hospitalized with COVID-19 who were given a high dose of a type of vitamin D (calcifediol), only one needed treatment in the intensive care unit. In contrast, among the 26 people with COVID-19 who weren't given calcifediol, 13 needed to be treated in the intensive care unit.
...snip...
In addition, vitamin D deficiency is common in the United States, particularly among Hispanic and Black people. These groups have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Vitamin D deficiency is also more common in people who are older, people who have a body mass index of 30 or higher (obesity), and people who have high blood pressure (hypertension). These factors also increase the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms.

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from the study

Treated patients also received oral calcifediol consisting of one 532 mcg soft capsule (a big 21,280 I.U. or ten of the typical 2000 IU tablets or Gummies) on the day of admission and 266 mcg (10,640 IU.) on days 3 and 7, then weekly until discharge. Calcifediol was used rather than alternative vitamin D formulations because of its reliable intestinal absorption and rapid restoration of serum concentration. The dosage is well within the safe dosage guidelines for critically ill patients with low 250HD plasma levels (12,500 mcg as a single dose) from the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism [20], even when adjusted for the higher absorption of calcifediol compared to vitamin D3.

Since Feb 2020 Dr Ralph Baric of UNC has advocated using drug named EIDD-2801 against Covid-19

Finally the clinical trial Phase 1 testing it has found in “extremely effective”

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-antiviral-medication-coronavirus-lab.html

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Publishing their work in Nature, scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health tested how the orally administered experimental drug EIDD-2801 halts SARS-CoV-2 replication and prevents infection of human cells in a new in vivo model containing human lung tissue.

They found that the drug was extremely effective and preventing and treating SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials are ongoing to evaluate EIDD-2801 safety in humans and its effect on viral shedding in COVID-19 patients.

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EIDD-2801 is expected to cause birth defects in pregnant women

In Florida, the Governor early on opened the vaccine to basically health care workers first, and then anyone over 65. The first problem here is limited supply that everyone knows about, accepts. But they are slowly widening the sites the vaccine is offered at as more becomes available. However when its announced to the public, its often haphazard and not uniform, and when its widely discovered of the new sites, the vaccines offered are often already filled. It' s making one wonder if there is an inside track to getting the vaccine, and the general public is always last to find out. I understand favoritism, but the government is getting so much heat to lower the restrictions, that there is likely to be millions in the 65 and up age group still un vaccinated when the lower the requirements we are now hearing around March 1st are disclosed, and the next waiting group is huge. There will be a lot of 65+ left out, if this pattern continues, sadly.

I think you're right. We started here in Michigan with health care workers, 65+ and public school employees all at once. It's been rough trying to get an appointment, but people are slowly getting through. I think Michigan caved to that heat right out of the gate and it is impacting the 65+ crowd from even being able to make the appointment. Appointments open up at 8:30am every Tuesday and the website is slammed. Available slots are filled in minutes if you're lucky enough to have the website respond in a timely manor and give the prompt to fill out your information. You've got to refresh the site multiple times in two or three windows in hope one of them gets through. Phone number to call is also always busy. I was lucky enough to get an appointment for my Mom yesterday. I can't possibly see how the majority of 65+ can deal with this. When it is opened up to even more there is bound to be a sizable number of 65+ that want it, but were unable to get it.

I thought the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would have been given emergency approval this week, after announcing the clinical trial results last Monday.

Instead the FDA announced that they will take 29 days to let their experts go over the data.

J&J already has several million shots ready to ship.

To “get more shots in arms faster” England is delaying the 2nd Pfizer and Moderna shots from 21 days to 120 days.

Slightly off topic

Paroxetine, a common and cheap anti-depressant
found to repair damaged joint cartilage

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021...first-ever-treatment-osteoarthritis.html

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"We found that paroxetine could return cartilage cells back to a normal state and preserve the cartilage surface," said Kamal.

In other experiments with cultured human osteoarthritic cartilage, obtained from patients undergoing knee replacement surgery, the team also confirmed the ability of paroxetine to mitigate chondrocyte hypertrophy and cartilage degradation.

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I saw this recently, but haven't had time to research it more.

"In the AstraZeneca trial, accidentally giving participants a half dose followed by a full dose 12 weeks later actually gave them better protection than two full doses four weeks apart. Now there’s thought that you might actually get better efficacy if you go out to six or 12 weeks. The CDC has alluded to this recently by saying we can wait on the second vaccine up to six weeks."

To find out if you are infected with a virus
instead of simply measuring your forehead temperature with a thermal scanner
first measure the temperature of the upper inner corner of your eye socket
then measure the temperature of your fingertip.
The greater the difference in temperature between the two,
the more likely you are sick

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-temperature-scanners-good-covid-19here.html

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But with fever, deep body temperature increases while the hands get colder,
so the difference between the eye and finger temperature increases.
Therefore, a more accurate way of using infrared thermometers to screen for COVID-19 might be to measure the temperature of the hand and the corner of the eye and determine the difference.

This wouldn't be perfect. Other situations can also increase this difference, including some age-related conditions. And, as we've noted, not all infected people develop fever symptoms. But it would be a step in the right direction, and so is worthy of further consideration.

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look to the extremes
Beating Covid and other future viruses may lie in examining the people who are highly resistant, and also the highly susceptible, to find the genes that matter most.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210219-the-covid-resistant-patients-e-the-viruss-weak-spots

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Even as the project began, Zhang already had a culprit in mind. In the 1960s, scientists discovered that our cells have an inbuilt alarm system to alert the rest of the body when it's being attacked by a new virus. "When a virus enters a cell, the infected cell makes proteins called 'type one interferons', which it releases outside the cell," explains Zhang. "All the surrounding cells receive that signal, and they devote everything to preparing to fight that virus. If the infection is serious, then cells will make enough type one interferon that it's released into the bloodstream, and so the entire body knows that it's under attack."

But sometimes genetic flaws mean that this system malfunctions. In 2015, Rockefeller scientists identified mutations in young, otherwise healthy people which led to them developing severe pneumonia from influenza. The mutations meant that the interferon response was non-existent. "If the alarm is silenced, then the virus can spread and proliferate much faster within the body," says Zhang.

It appears this also plays a role in making some people unexpectedly vulnerable to Covid-19. A series of scientific papers published in September 2020 compared 987 outliers – Covid-19 patients who developed severe pneumonia who were either younger than 50, or older than 50 and without any co-morbidities – to asymptomatic patients. Around 3.5% had a major gene mutation which made it impossible for them to generate an interferon response.

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Johnson & Johnson single shot vaccine approved. Several million doses already made and ready to ship.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/24/cov...s-jjs-single-shot-for-emergency-use.html

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The vaccine’s level of protection varied by region, J&J said, with the shot demonstrating 66% effectiveness overall, 72% in the United States, 66% in Latin America and 57% in South Africa, where the B.1.351 variant is rapidly spreading. However, the FDA staff documents show the vaccine was 64% effective in South Africa after about a month. The company said the vaccine prevented 100% of hospitalizations and deaths.

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JJ testing to see if adding a 2nd booster shot increases effectiveness too.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-02-fda-single-dose-shot-jj-severe.html

The British government plans to study whether giving the JJ vaccine first, then some other vaccine 2nd, boosts the effectiveness.
They are doing this with other vaccines too, such as giving the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine 1st, then Pfizer vaccine shot 2nd, etc.
You might call this “mix and match” research.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...hots-continues/ar-BB1dZZaM?ocid=BingNews

Pfizer BioNtech testing what a 3rd “Booster” vaccine shot might do

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...-covid-vaccine/ar-BB1e0CMu?ocid=BingNews

For what it is worth I got my second Moderna shot last Friday. The first gave me no side effects while the second gave me flu-like symptoms for about nine hours. Had the shot at 11:30am and felt body aches and chills starting at 11pm. That night was like a rough, albeit very short flu. Was lethargic until about mid-day.

My mother gets her second shot in a few hours, 2 weeks to mine .

The J&J shot will be great for poorer countries, only one shot is much easier.

I got the second Pfizer vaccine shot on the 12th and what you describe is similar to what I felt on the 13th.