Holiday Injection … Done! Getting “Pfizered” for Greece

 

Some parts of the world are trying to get back to some sort of Covid normal, while others are in crisis.  Where we live 40% have been vaccinated and likely 50% have already had the virus.

Monty, aged 17 with ASD, is a big fan of swimming in the sea and where we live that means crossing borders.  Crossing borders is much easier if you have had a Covid-19 vaccine and it looks like for children the best option is the one from Pfizer-BioNTech.  BioNTech is the clever company set up by a Turkish husband and wife team in Germany. They licensed their vaccine to Pfizer for distribution outside of China, in China they have a deal with Fosun Pharma.

Last week Monty had the opportunity, at very short notice, to go and get the Pfizer inoculation. I collected him from school and took him to a clinic in the city centre, that he has never been to and which undoubtedly would have a long line of people queuing outside it.

Monty knows all about injections and syringes, courtesy of his dental marathon a couple of years ago. He even knows about antibodies from Biology classes. The most rational explanation I came up with while driving, for why he was going to see the “doctor” was that it was for his “holiday injection”.  Monty’s school assistant had some more scientific explanations, but the problem is then you are left wondering why you still need to wear a mask at school, after you have been “Pfizered”.

“Do you like swimming in the sea, on holiday?” …   “Yes” was reply.

“This year, because of Covid, you need to get a holiday injection in your arm.  It doesn’t hurt and we’ve all had ours.”

“After 2 holiday injections, you’re ready for summer holidays.”

Bad news became good news.  Holidays … nice!

 

Children traveling without a covid Vaccine

In many cases children can travel without a covid vaccine, but you may need a PCR test before the trip out and the trip back.  You might well develop covid whilst you are abroad and then you are stuck.

A classmate of Monty was traveling with his vaccinated parents and the border policeman was not sure whether to let him through, since he had no PCR test, or vaccine certificate.

The Pfizer vaccine does look the best choice for a healthy 17-year-old.  For them, safety is more important than efficacy, because they are at almost zero risk from the current variants of the virus.  This may very well change in the coming years.

  

Covid risk for those with autism

Whether you are at elevated risk from Covid depends on what kind of autism you have.  I think my son is at even lower risk than his peers; he very rarely gets sick and another reason is his steroid inhaler for asthma; this actually reduces the chance of mild covid becoming severe covid.  Steroids are now widely used in hospital treatment, but really should be started before you even think about going to hospital.

People with MS (multiple sclerosis) taking disease modifying therapy may be another group who are protected from severe Covid.  These therapies block the cytokine storm that takes you from mild covid to severe covid.  The studies are somewhat contradictory, so you can believe whichever you want.   

The expensive drug Remdesivir, was approved as a therapy even though it has no effect on mortality, which makes you seriously wonder about its benefit.  Not surprisingly, the cheap oral steroid drug, Dexamethasone, substantially reduces mortality.

What happened to hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Didier Raoult, the French Professor who promoted it?  He still thinks he is right, even though great efforts were made to prove him wrong, including using data later shown to have been faked.

A recently published study looking at 28,759 adults with mild COVID 19 in Iran actually supports Raoult:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567576921002721

Early administration of HCQ reduced the odds of hospitalization by 38%.

Early administration of HCQ reduced the odds of death by 73%.

Serious HCQ adverse drug reactions were not reported in any of the age groups with or without comorbidities.

 

Does hydroxychloroquine have an anti-viral benefit in Covid-19?  Only you can decide.  The scare stories about dangerous side effects were evidently grossly overstated, which makes you wonder what else was made up by the naysayers.

I think this shows that you can find data to support whichever side you favour.  This seems to happen quite often, when a medical issue becomes politicized.

My own Covid therapy was hydroxychloroquine as the antiviral, to which I would have added prednisone if necessary.  As a local doctor told me, you do not want to go to hospital with Covid.

Back to autism.

Some types of autism are associated with comorbidities elsewhere in your body.  These can include problems with your lungs, as in the case of Down syndrome. If you have Prader Willi syndrome, you will present with autism and obesity.  The obesity is the covid risk.

Intellectual disability is put forward as a Covid risk, which makes sense.  People with ID/MR are likely to live in group homes or institutions, where they may be exposed to the virus and they may not follow all the protective measures.  People taking psychiatric drugs are likely to be overweight, which is a bigger risk factor than age.  People with ID/MR are likely to get worse healthcare than typical people, even when there is no health crisis.  The study below seems very credible'. 

After old age, intellectual disability is greatest risk factor for death from COVID-19, study finds

The results showed that those with intellectual disabilities were 2.5 times more likely to contract COVID-19, were about 2.7 times more likely to be admitted to the hospital and 5.9 times more likely to die from the infection than the general population.

Nowadays most people diagnosed with autism do not have any intellectual disability, so it makes sense that in some countries they have made people with intellectual disability, rather than just autism, as a priority group for vaccination.  

On a practical level, an overstretched hospital is not going to be a good place for an adult with intellectual disability, with or without autism.  They should indeed be prioritized for vaccination

When it comes to autism parents there seem to be three groups: -

1.     Desperate to get the vaccine

2.     Desperate to avoid the vaccine

3.     Desperate to go on holiday