Leah writes:
Hi there. What would be the downside of a person over 65 who does not have a specific condition that lowers their immune response using Pemgarda? Is this the CDC protecting Medicare from having to pay for it?
Thanks!
Leah
Julie writes:
Thank you for all of your science communication!
You’ve mentioned that you plan on getting a Novavax COVID-19 vaccination in the fall due to potential longer durability.
Two questions: 1. Do you think it will be less effective against current variants than the fall MRNA vaccines because Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.
2. Would you consider getting it in the arm that hasn’t gotten other COVID-19 vaccinations based on a prior Novavax study suggesting more durability if switching arms.
p.s. I did get 2 Novavax shots in the clinical trials – 1 in each arm but switched to the MRNAs when the MRNAs got emergency approval and Novavax struggled.
Thanks!
Julie
Ian writes:
Hello Dr. Griffin,
I’m an emergency medicine doctor, avid paxlovid prescriber and greatful listener. This podcast has given me the knowledge and confidence to provide the most evidenced based care to countless patients with COVID from the start of the pandemic to the present. I can’t thank you and Vincent enough for what you do.
I was hoping you could clarify and summarize the evidence regarding the ability of people to transmit COVID during the early inflammatory phase (commonly but erroneously known as COVID rebound). You had said many times that once someone tests positive for COVID to stop testing, isolate and then come out of isolation 24 hours after symptoms improve and they are feeling better. My understanding is that the symptoms during the “rebound” phase are from the inflammatory response and not from active viral replication and shedding.
If this is the case, I wonder why the CDC isolation guidelines recommend to re-isolate if symptoms return? Also I have known many people who have done serial tests and have had two negative tests 48 hours apart, only to have a positive test during the “rebound” period.” If this is not due to increased shedding of infectious virus, what can explain this? Shedding of non-infectious viral particles that are only now being released during the inflammatory phase?
As any good evidence based and science based practitioner will admit, my understanding of this phenomenon may be entirely wrong or that as often is the case, we do not have the studies or evidence to know for certain.
Your thoughts on this matter are greatly appreciated.
-Ian
From last week’s livestream:
Do IL-17 inhibitors help reduce COVID disease?
Anonymous writes:
My mother-in-law tested positive for COVID this week. She was reluctant to make the effort to get paxlovid. My wife, a pulmonary intensivist, said, well we give it to our patients because we don’t have anything else, but it doesn’t actually do very much. So I showed her the IDSA guidelines you link to in the show notes. To my surprise, those rate paxlovid as only a “conditional recommendation, [with] low certainty of evidence.” To be fair, that was last updated over a year ago, but I’m wondering if I’m missing something…
Thanks for all of the time you devote to educating us.