COVID-19 Update: Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Today is heavy. Mutations, adverse events, long COVID, and shingles

1. Another variant has been found in Germany. In case you lost track, that means we now have significant mutations from the U.K., South Africa, Brazil, the US and now Germany. The CDC predicts the UK variant will become the predominant variant in the US by March. If this proves true, it will mean a significant increase in cases over that time frame. You can read a news article about the German variant here: https://www.politico.eu/article/new-coronavirus-variant-identified-in-german-hospital/

2. Norway has issued a warning regarding giving the Pfizer vaccine to those who are critically ill and/or elderly after 23 elderly patients died after receiving the vaccine. They are investigating these deaths to determine possible connections. In the United States, 55 people have died after receiving the vaccine. Twenty-seven received Moderna's vaccine and 28 received the Pfizer vaccines. Of those, 15 had no known illness. These are being investigated to determine if they are vaccine-related. I am attaching the VAERS report so you can see them for yourself. VAERS is the vaccine adverse events reporting system for vaccines. Worth mentioning is that these events do not have to be confirmed to be included, they are all suspected events so we can track and investigate them. Also important to note this is a small percentage of the millions of vaccines that have been administered (11 million) AND it seems to be among the elderly/infirmed. Most of those impacted had significant health issues. In all, there have been just over 6k adverse reactions ranging from sore arms, allergic reactions, racing hearts, spiking blood pressure, and death. I am only including the deaths in the attached document. You should be informed about all these things but don't yet be alarmed. (see document below)

3. COVID is causing Shingles in some people - this is now considered a fairly common co-infection in mild-moderate cases.

4. About 30% of people who are hospitalized with COVID are readmitted within a few months and 1 in 8 dies within 5 months due to COVID complications according to a recent study that has not yet been peer-reviewed so take that for what it is worth. Those are pretty high numbers. You can read the pre-print study on MedRx here, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249885v1.full.pdf In related news, about 76% of those who are hospitalized with COVID are still experiencing symptoms 6 months later.

5. Early findings indicate the South African variant may not respond to the current vaccines. This isn't definite yet, but it isn't looking great.

...and that seems like enough for today.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Today's news is heavy and a little discouraging. But today I also read that the Swinhoe turtle found a mate. This is outstanding news because he was believed to be the last turtle of his kind and then voila, we found a girl turtle. Where there was once sadness and sorrow and the loss of a species, there is now hope, just like that. We would be wise to remember the same can be true of us. Things may seem dark, disturbing, and hopeless, but just when we have given up, hope can emerge. There is always hope. Cling to that today.

I am including the link to a news article called the hope behind the headlines, it is about the positive and hopeful COVID related news. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/vaccines-and-covid-19-the-latest-hopeful-research?utm_source=Sailthru%20Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=newsAlerts&utm_term=coronavirus&utm_content=2021-01-19&apid=34913069&rvid=97009153b99f757b546a07be13b943dff654bfd2643b180f345845d21b04e10b#Authorized-vaccines-vs.-new-variants

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Syst.

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