Well I had my first dose of the AstraZenica vaccine the other day and have got a date of 4 June for the second dose. In fact the whole family apart from the youngest have been done and our eldest has even had the second dose (she is in the National Health Service so got priority). We didn't have any side effects but we did take paracetomol before getting the vaccine and afterwards for a couple of days. some of my staff have been knocked a bit sideways but they refused to take paracetomol.

The hospitalisation and mortality rates in the UK are down significantly but the actual numbers of infections seems to be going down more slowly - I suspect that some people are being reverting to old normal too soon thinking that the old people are protected so they can ignore the virus - wrong, you can't, it can, and does, kill younger people as well.

__________________
You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Also in the UK, I had mine last week, AZ also and I took paracetomol about an hour before the injection,
I felt a bit off about 9 hours after the injection, achy, temperature and feeling cold. Went to bed and felt better. Tired the next day but otherwise fine.
We've had quite a few people had work now that have had the vaccine and most had a few hours of feeling slightly ill but then fine.

From my experience, I won't plan to do much for 24 hours after the jab.

I have my first about a fortnight ago and also felt tired and a little achey for a day or two, yes numbers are down but I am still being carefull as before and hope others do the same.

The rule of thumb for side effects (based on the roughly 20 people getting each type that I know) seems to be -

Pfizer - you get a sore arm around the injection site. It can very sore (unable to sleep on it sore) for 1-2 days but no other symptoms.

AstraZenica - no sore arm (other than the effect of the needle going in) but flu like symptoms setting in 12-24hrs later and lasting for 1-3 days. Paracetamol mostly sorts out it out but a couple of people I know have had to take a few days off work.

Either way it's a lot better than getting Covid. At the moment I know of four people who have died from it, one still having problems with long Covid six months on, one who's got it at the moment and one person who had it and hardly noticed.

I had the AZ one six weeks ago but no sign of when I'll get the second shot.

I also had the AZ jab 2 weeks ago but no date yet for the second. They said approx 12 weeks. Same for wife

Took paracetamol after jab but had hot sweats and mild headache in the evening. A few glasses of wine and all good. Arm a bit sore for 3 days

My daughter had the AZ one as well and were poorly for 3 days with flu type symptoms

I had the first AstraZenica vaccine a few weeks ago and will get the second in april. I just had a light headache the next day and that was all. No problem.
I hope everybody will be vaccinated soon so we can start riding and traveling again to other countries (and have a pitstop in a nice restaurant or cafe while doing that) and goto events.

__________________
Jan Krijtenburg

My bikes are a Honda GoldWing GL1200 and a BMW R1200GS

My personal homepage with trip reports: https://www.krijtenburg.nl/
YouTube channel (that I do together with one of my sons): motormobilist.nl

Interesting that most of the people that have had the vaccine are from the UK - I know we are ahead of the EU as a proportion of the population inoculated but I thought that the US was not far behind the UK. Hopefully this is just due to the time differences.

There does appear to be some sections of society that are not taking up the vaccine and these seem to be concentrated amongst some ethnic groups that have been targeted in social media with loads of disinformation (also know as lies / bull shit) suggesting all sorts of bad things will happen to the recipients - I really wonder about some people that go out of their way to make stuff up that aims to lead to other people dying.

There are a few unhappy people that are kicking off in the UK at the idea of having to prove that you have been vaccinated before being allowed to go to events / the pub / the cinema etc and the incorporation of the vaccination into a “passport” type document.

__________________
You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

There's talk about disliking a "vaccine card" here in the States, of course. But I have to point out that the Yellow Card that one needs in order to prove vaccination for diseases like Yellow Fever and other similar diseases has been around forever. I think a lot of folks who don't travel do not know about the Yellow Card. I do have a Yellow Card, and now a card of record for the Moderna vaccine.

We need this vaccine in the States, because of the resistance and false information that flows. Some people think in terms of only me, vs we as a society. We have been warned here about the likelihood of a spike, because of vaccine resistance, and despite vaccinations completed. My attitude is if you have the opportunity to get a vaccine and decide not, then you made the choice and have to accept the consequences if you do eventually get covid. I remember pilio and smallpox vaccination along with TB testing programs from the 1950's, as a good thing. This is the first severe and global public health issue in 70 years, so memory is missing for most.

AZ one, two weeks ago, got it in the first phase of the roll-out (ambulance EMT).
No paracetamol, slight headache the next day.
Bring it on, let's see an end to this damned thing.

__________________
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Pfizer for me here in Colorado- 2 doses and 2 weeks of settling- I'm happy.

My 96 year old mother- Pfizer, 2 doses. Her senior living apartment building is about 95% vaccinated and they have finally opened their doors to guests again. In fact, my wife and I were there, in her apartment tonight, eating dinner. First time in 12 months.

All my riding buddies have been vaccinated now too, but we're all greybeards, moving toward whitebeards.

My daughter, 32, and her boyfriend got their first jabs of Moderna yesterday.

US acceptance of vaccines has been pretty good in older populations, not as accepted in minority populations - but that is improving.

The ones who just won't get the vaccine are the dyed in the wool followers of our past president, who turned it into a political issue. I don't hold out a lot of hope for that group. Maybe they'll come around as they see we not dying, nor are we being controlled by Bill Gates (who in one version of the story was using the vaccine to implant chips in all of us. ?????)

...................shu

Apparently my parents (80 and 74) finally got their first shot today. I believe it was Pfizer.

No shot in sight yet for anyone under 70 here in BC. The gov't is saying maybe I'll get a first shot by July. The Canadian government really seems to have fumbled the ball on this one...

__________________
Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

I don't suppose too many of us have enough knowledge of what virus's are, how vacines work, what precautions are essential / which are worthless etc to be able to cut through the bullsh*t on our own. So we have to choose who to believe, and often there's just enough 'pseudotruth' in some of the stories to cause you to doubt the official line, especially if you're suspicious of government and you're being told it by someone you trust.

Bill Gates microchips for example. No, there's no microchips being implanted, and no, the vaccine isn't going to change your DNA and turn you into a zombie (or whatever it's supposed to do) but two of the vaccines do inject RNA (DNA, RNA, potato, potaato) which goes into some of your cells and highjacks them to produce foreign proteins. If your political senses are more finely tuned than your virology ones that doesn't need much of a twist to become the message 'the government wants you to inject stuff into your body that'll take it over'. As nobody knows what proteins or RNA are microchips become a stand-in.

If you think that's patronisingly simplistic I know a health professional - a multi decade nurse - working in a large hospital who has refused to be vaccinated because 'it'll make me infertile'. She's in her 60's! Despite working with the stuff all day long her personal beliefs, sourced from her community, have overridden her professional knowledge. If she's taken in by it all what hope do many of the rest of us have.

Part of the problem with 'social passports' is that those most likely to need them will be the last to get them. If there's an unfulfilled need then 'alternative' sources will fill the void. Introducing them on a Monday to have the market flooded with fake ones by Friday isn't going to do much for disease control measures. My guess is a combination of the elections in May (don't upset the electorate just before they have to vote you back in) and how to produce something that won't be counterfeited (for a while anyway) is what's being kicked around in smoke filled rooms at present.

I had the Pfizer in February, no ill effects beyond any other vaccination. Waiting to get date for second shot and hoping "supply issues" won't delay it.

A lot of people said the UK, after delaying the second shot to 3 months against the manufacturers recommendation of 3 weeks, would experience a shortage after 3 months as they needed to catch up on the delayed second doses after the initial sprint, and that's what is happening it seems. How much of an advantage the strategy will be is yet to be seen, but the fear is that giving partial immunity could let vaccine resistant strains emerge.

UK infection numbers are fairly stable as of today, but not declining despite the continuing lockdown. Probably due to schools having been sent back. They appear to be gambling that while young people may get infected, the number of serious cases is quite small. Though this logic didn't help back at the end of 2020 when infection numbers went rocketing as schoolkids brought the virus home to parents, who took it into workplaces.

That's how my sister in law caught it - she works in a school. She was fine while the schools were on hold but within a couple of weeks of them going back she got it - and still has long covid issues.

It's early days yet for the viral mutation problem but there is some evidence to show that the virus may be constrained in what viable mutations are possible. The same relatively small number of convergent evolution changes seem to be showing up again and again. If that pans out it may make the vaccine manufacturers future life a little easier. Popular science article on the subject via the link below if you're interested -

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...riable-so-far/

The statistics over the last few months have been that about 1 in ten of all new cases end up in hospital, and about one in three of those die. A sobering fact.

I wanted to see whether it was possible to measure the effect of the vaccine, so I took the 7-day rolling averages (smoothed) data for new cases, hospital admissions and deaths and plotted them. This didn't help much as the figures were so disparate, so I divided all the case figures by 21 and all the admissions by 2.5. In this way the start position of cases and admissions at the beginning of February was roughly level with the 1,150 deaths per day.

What you can see from the chart is that the blue cases line has reduced nicely due to a mix of lockdown and vaccinations, but the orange admissions line has reduced even more, and the grey deaths line more again. By measuring the difference between the blue (258) and grey (74) lines at the 25 March one might propose that the vaccine is currently saving 184 lives per day, or to put it another way, over 70% of deaths are being prevented.

It takes 2-3 weeks for the vaccine to become really effective and the effect of the vaccine on death rates will increase dramatically over the next couple of months as increasing numbers of the population are vaccinated.

I will admit this chart is REALLY crude as what I should have done is to factor in the typically ten day gap between reported new cases and admissions, and then the typically twenty days to death. But it was enough to satisfy my curiosity about the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)