A: With BA.2 on the rise, getting your next booster shot if you’re eligible (50+ or immunocompromised, in the U.S.) can keep your protection high with little downside. What we know right now is that a second booster shot poses few risks, but the benefits vary from person to person. And we don’t yet have Read more…
Live Q&As with Those Nerdy Girls are back! Dear Pandemic co-founder Dr. Malia Jones is handing over the Live Q&A torch to Dr. Chana Davis Fueled By Science. Malia and Chana will talk about 4th shots / second boosters, the new Omicron strain, vaccines for kids, and rapid tests for Omicron. ➡️ 0:00-1:24 Welcome and introductions Read more…
A: Unfortunately, no. TL;DR: 💥Our current antibody tests can’t tell us precisely how well someone is protected from COVID-19 infection or disease. Whether you have been previously infected, vaccinated, boosted or a combination of the three, the recent authorization of additional booster shots has people wondering if there is a way to tell if you Read more…
A friendly Family Medicine physician’s thoughts. At this point in the pandemic, it’s easy to oscillate between feeling weary at the thought of more vaccines (Will we ever have had enough?!) and feeling panicked at the idea of being left unprotected (What if I don’t get a booster for my booster? Will I need a Read more…
A: First of all, there is no question that you SHOULD get a booster. As for which one, either of the mRNA vaccines is recommended for nearly everyone who got J&J as their first vaccine. And if you got J&J and you already got a booster, you may now be eligible for another one–read on Read more…
Yes! ✋🏾 We have! ✋🏾 It is still early, but it is pretty neat from a nerdy girl standpoint. It helps people get a lot of questions answered in one place. We tried it out and especially thought it was helpful to order free COVID-19 tests and to find COVID-19 treatment once someone receives a Read more…
NEWS: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a “2nd booster” of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for adults over age 50. Key points: A 4th dose is authorized for anyone 50 and over who received a booster of an authorized COVID-19 vaccine more than 4 months ago. An additional booster (a 5th dose) is Read more…
Q: If an unvaccinated person gets blood from a vaccinated person, will the vaccine transfer? A: No. If an unvaccinated person gets a blood transfusion from a vaccinated donor, the unvaccinated person does not become vaccinated. That’s true for COVID-19 vaccines and all other vaccines, too. Not even if the blood donation happens right after Read more…
TL;DR: Moderna’s kids vaccine hit high marks for safety and antibody response, but efficacy against mild illness was not as high as earlier trials (likely due to Omicron). Moderna announced yesterday (via press release) that they will submit for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of their vaccine for kids aged 6 months to < 6 years. Read more…
Yes! Even if you have already been infected, getting the recommended booster vaccine is a good idea. There is some evidence that hybrid immunity, or immunity obtained from getting vaccinated and having a COVID-19 infection, can provide good protection against COVID-19. So why should I get a booster if I had COVID? Hybrid immunity can Read more…
➡️ Put simply, if you are immunocompromised it means that your immune system does not work like the system of a non-immunocompromised person. It can’t tell when a cell is harmful or not so it does not mount an immune response (i.e. it can’t fight an infection as well). So to be immunocompromised, someone’s immune Read more…
If you got a J&J shot initially, you should *definitely* get a booster. And if it was us (and it was, for some of us), we would pick an mRNA booster. It’s not likely to produce worse protection, and it eliminates the very small risk of a serious adverse event linked to the J&J vaccine. Read more…
You may have seen a lot of news about the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 5–11-year-old kids in the last few days. One new report out of New York suggested that the COVID-19 vaccine for these kids does not provide much protection against getting infected. Another study from the CDC shows that the vaccines continue to Read more…
A: Breastfeeding can likely help protect babies from COVID-19 but we don’t know yet how well. Antibodies from vaccination or infection are transferred through breast milk, but they are short-lived and do not enter the bloodstream. By contrast, antibodies transferred during pregnancy enter the fetal bloodstream, where they often persist for six months or more, Read more…
