Covid and Bird flu update: July 13, 2023

Remember me? It's been a while. The world continues to turn and most of us have gone back to "normal." But today I saw a couple of things I wanted to share with you so I hope you will allow me to pop back into your life for this brief update.

1. Long-vaccine - It seems, that some people who were vaccinated are experiencing some long term complications associated with the vaccine. In some pretty small studies, we are finding that some people are reporting the onset of neurological issues following their vaccination. These are issues that are also associated with actually getting COVID. So it becomes difficult to know if it is caused by the vaccine or if the person also got/had COVID and it is a result of that. It is not uncommon for vaccines to result in people experiencing things they would experience if they got the actual disease. I.e. if you got the disease you may develop frequent headaches. This is also one of the possible long term outcomes from the vaccine that we may be seeing. The good news here is that if you were going to be impacted you would know it already as these are showing up right away. If you are experiencing neurological issues post vaccine - make sure you let your doctor know. In most cases these are not substantial neurological issues but small things (like more frequent headaches etc.). Again, the studies are small (less than 100 people) but I wanted you to hear here and not via the grapevine.

2. Bird flu - I am sure you know that bird flu is a substantial issue right now. You may have noticed that the price of eggs has skyrocketed and the price of chicken is also up. Bird flu is very serious for birds and spreads rampantly through wild birds in particular. This is a significant global issue right now. There are three major mutations that would be required in the virus for it to spread to humans. One of those has already happened. And now we are seeing it spread among more and more mammals. Not good. The more species the virus is in, the more mutations that will happen, the more likely it is to spread to humans. Now....there are some things to know here. There is a difference in it spreading to an animal and an animal getting it. - weird but true. For example, if your dog goes into the backyard and eats a dead bird - if the bird had bird flu, the dog could get sick and likely die. That is not the same as the dog catching bird flu. (ingestion vs inhalation). We have know that ingestion was an issue. But now, it seems that inhalation is as well. No reason to panic - not even a little. But every reason to monitor and follow this. Should something change significantly, I will let you know.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I hope you are doing well and that life is treating you kindly. As such, treat others kindly as well. We are all carrying so much around that no one around us knows about. A smile and a kind word/gesture go a long way in this world.