COVID19 Update: January 20th 2022

Hamsters, Frequently misunderstood, and other random bits of info.

I don't have tons of new information to report or anything life-altering, I just wanted to touch base, share one new item, and address some things I am hearing frequently that are incorrect.

1. The new item: Hamsters can get COVID. Hong Kong has detected COVID in pet hamsters. This is actually a few days old now so you should be able to find news stories on it if you are interested. But they detected COVID in hamsters at a pet store. It doesn't look like the hamsters get sick and we don't yet know if they can spread it back to humans. For the time being, if you have hamsters in the house (as I do) and someone in the home gets COVID, try to limit the time you spend around the hamster while you are sick, make sure your children don't "kiss" their hamster (particularly while sick) and that they wash their hands after handling it - just as a precaution. Keep in mind, the more animals that contract the virus, the more likely we are to see antigenic shift creating new variants.

2. We are seeing quite a few reports of dizziness accompanying Omicron. I verified today that it is not yet an official symptom, but anecdotally, there are lots of people with Omicron saying they experienced intermittent dizziness or lightheadedness. So just be aware of that.

3. A reminder of the science: your body has and uses energy for everything you do. You do not have a bottomless pot of energy to draw from. Energy is necessary for you to fight off any infection. If you are vaccinated and encounter the "germ" in question (in this case, Sars-Cov2, even with vaccination/booster, your body needs the energy to produce immune cells to fight off the infection. If you get sick, your body needs even more energy to fight off the infection -even if the infection is mild. If you use up all, or the bulk of that energy on other things - like work or going along as if you are not sick, then your immune system has less energy and it will take longer to recover. So rest. Even if you feel "fine" rest. You have limited white blood cells just floating around in your blood. Think of them as monitors. If something gets in (and it does pretty much daily) those WBCs may deal with it swiftly, or they may need backup. Back up comes from the bone marrow in your long bones -i.e. arms and legs. Your body has to make them and then distribute the immune cells from the bones through the lymphatic system where there are "gateways" from the system to the rest of the body. Then, a war rages in your body between the different immune cells and the germ. This requires, say it with me, energy. Resting is a good thing. Resting allows your body to have and use the energy necessary to produce an effective immune response. So if you are sick, rest. Even when you don't want to.

4. I am getting a fair number of questions about protocols - rightly so, they seem to have changed quite a bit. Regarding masks -you need one. You need one that fits well and has multiple layers. I flew last week and I wore two in the airport and on the plane. I was not alone in that. I had one of the store-bought surgical masks and one cloth mask that had a carbon filter. Regarding isolation, if you get Covid - we are now going with a general 10-day rule. Omicron seems to spread easier and sooner - so the window of contagion is actually shorter. This is good news. Protocols shift to adapt to the variant of dominance, in this case, Omicron. If another one takes over, we have to evaluate it. For now, consider yourself in need of isolation for 10 days from disease onset. Now....we are all different so we are all going to have a different experience with this. You may be mildly ill for 2 days. Excellent. Stay home away from others. When you are better, wear a mask when around others for the remainder of your 10 days. If you are sick for 4 days - wear a mask when around others for the remaining 6 days. You may be actively sick for 12 days - so you went over the 10-day rule. Now what? Consider yourself contagious during that time. I recommend wearing a mask for 5 days afterward as a precaution. After having Omicron, you should have a 10-week window in which you are immune to Omicron. Again, everyone is different so you may not, but generally speaking, you are immune for about 10 weeks.

5. Some things I hear regularly that aren't correct or are misunderstood.

   1. This disease isn't as deadly as things like polio so it doesn't need a vaccine - Response: not true. Polio is not all that deadly or even all that debilitating for most people. Only 1 out of 4 people will develop any symptoms at all, and less than 2% of all cases are severe. Less than 2%. Compare that to COVID which (pre-Omicron) reported 15% of cases as severe.

   2. It didn't take as long to develop this vaccine as other vaccines so it isn't safe - Response: That is true that it didn't take as long. But it's like saying because it didn't take as long to develop blue post-it notes as it did to develop yellow post-it notes, then you aren't going to use the blue ones. There are tons of reasons it didn't take as long. We have discussed these previously but the vaccine was mostly developed during the SARS outbreak. We just had to tweak a few things.

   3. Covid requires so many shots, other vaccines don't - Response: not true. HepB requires 3 shots, tetanus has to be given every 10 years, the flu has to be given every year, polio requires 4 shots, MMR requires 2 shots, RV (rotavirus) requires 3 shots, DTaP requires 5 shots.

   4. You can't spread polio or get polio if you get the vaccine, with covid you can so this isn't a real vaccine - Response: not true. How not true depends on if you get the oral polio vaccine or the injected one -and that depends on where you live in the world or how old you were when you got the vaccine. But you CAN spread polio even after vaccination. And you CAN get it after being vaccinated. You don't see that happening so much because we are all vaccinated against Polio. There has been NO polio in the United States since the 1980s and yet we continue to vaccinate against it. (and so we should)

   5. The vaccine doesn't even work - Response: The current COVID vaccine wasn't designed for the current variant. So it doesn't work great against it in regards to preventing disease, that is true. But it does help reduce the severity, particularly if you have the booster too. And currently, we are still seeing FAR more hospitalizations and severe cases among the unvaccinated than the vaccinated. But you are right that the vaccine and the current variant are not a great match.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Well, since we spoke last, we have celebrated two birthdays in my home. I now have 3 teenagers in the house, we had a death in the family (not from COVID), I flew on a plane for the first time since COVID, and my family got COVID. I left town and shabang - they all got it, smh. Everyone was vaccinated, I am the only one who has gotten the booster. Thus far, I have not gotten it. Everyone in the house experienced it differently but pretty much along the lines of the stats - more severe among the males, more severe among the older vs younger. Some experienced it as an annoyance for 2 days, some had what would be considered a bad cold for 5-6 days, two are ongoing. No one is/was severely ill. As I talk to people around the country and around the world I am reminded how we are all experiencing this but we are all experiencing it very differently. Different places have reacted differently and enacted very different policies and responses. In some places, those have been very heavy-handed and in some nearly invisible. I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage you to love yourself and cut yourself some slack. Everyone has been holding on for so long it is exhausting. So just know it is totally fine to sit on the couch and do nothing sometimes. And I also want to encourage you to love others. People have been hanging on for a long time. They are tired, frayed, exasperated, and looking for an outlet. Let's choose to turn the other cheek today. Stay warm and safe. Wash your hands, and remember, don't kiss any hamsters.