Amy writes:
Hi Daniel,
I was just listening to last Saturday’s episode of TWIV and heard a question about typhoid vaccination. We see lots of patients requesting vaccines and chemoprophylaxis for foreign travel. Vivotif is once again available at local pharmacies here in Brooklyn Heights; I have prescribed it a couple of times in the last month, and patients have been successful in getting it. Until a couple of months ago it wasn’t even listed as an option in the prescription formulary in our EMR. This is good news for our patients as we don’t carry the IM vaccine in our offices.
Hope that’s helpful to you and your listeners!
Cheers,
Amy Lazarides MD
Emergency Physician at CityMD
Nina writes:
As a 67-yr old asthmatic, I’ve been cautious about possible Covid-19 infection. After all this time, I was starting to think either I already had covid but was asymptomatic or that I was somehow immune.
I volunteer regularly in a kindergarten classroom. I rcvd a text last week that a student had tested positive for covid and 3 days later, I did as well. Thx to your podcast, I had a plan and have started Paxlovid! I’m happy to report that my dr knew about Paxlovid, verified my last kidney function test and my disease timeline, and I got the prescription right away.
Thx again!
Nina
Steve writes:
Dear Dr. Griffin:
I am a retired internist in the Philadelphia area. Early in the pandemic one of my professors from medical school who is 93 and still active in medicine told me about TWIV and I have been watching ever since.
The past weekend I was visiting my grand children in Massachusetts. As I was watching your discussion Owen, my 19 month old grandson climbed into my lap and for a few minutes watched you very intently before climbing down to play with his toys. I have concluded that one is never too old [93] or too young [19 months] to watch TWIV. Many thanks to you and Vincent for your excellent discussions.
Steve
Linda writes:
Question on what do we know when we are most infectious and do rapid tests equate infectiousness? I had a sore throat (day zero), rapid test negative. No surprise, Was sneezing and a a little tired the next day and the day after a little less. Ran another test on day 2 (approx 46 hours after the first) and continued to improve and figured it was not covid. A friend mentioned testing much later so I retested 4 1/2 days after symptoms started and was strong positive. Retested day 6 – strong positive. I understand we can show symptoms earlier since vaccinated and the body reacting to the virus but I was isolated when I was sick and not when I was not and later found out I did have covid! So when was I likely to spread? I was fine on day 4 just some not unusual for me sneezing here and there. I am fine now and am positive, so I have isolated. Michael Mina says rapid tests do correlate with virus cultures and that this is not just non infectious particles. CDC says most contagious early on (when I was actually negative- granted I did not test on day 3). Any studies on when one is most likely most contagious? Things seem to keep changing. In retrospect, I might have put people at risk- thankfully I was masked so perhaps I did not put anyone at risk.
Linda