VirologyThrow

I have a friend who had a very mild case of COVID and was later vaccinated with AZ. She reported a transient change in her menstruation (timing and heavy flows) after both.

It's interesting that reports of menstrual changes after vaccination were widely dismissed initially. Now they're being acknowledged, but even though we don't know the mechanisms by which they're happening and why they happen in some people but not others, the "experts" are telling us that there's nothing to worry about.

Sadly, this default behavior of dismissing anything that anyone suggests might be related to vaccination and stating with confidence that any side effects related to them are harmless (even when we don't understand those side effects) has only hurt confidence in the vaccines and the process by which they were approved, and reduced trust in the experts who are supposed to be acting with scientific and medical integrity.

By trying to quickly "replace" alcohol with something that delivers an equally satisfying feeling, you might be setting yourself up for failure, especially if you are really an alcoholic.

A more realistic first step would be to stop hanging out with your alcoholic friends, or at least trying to set very clear boundaries with them so that you avoid situations where you're encouraged or pressured to drink. This might not be possible, in which case you'll have to make some tough decisions about who you allow to stay in your life.

Either way, consider expanding your social circle to include people who don't drink. That group might include people who are sober or trying to achieve sobriety.

Once you're in the right environments and around the right people, it will be easier to find alcohol-free activities that you enjoy.

Mina's tweets are all over the place, and mostly speculation. It's also strange that he's arguing that the vaccines are working in one breath, and then basically telling people to retest daily if possible and go into isolation the minute they think they're going to sneeze in another breath.

The cold is a minor annoyance to most people's immune system, as almost everyone has prior exposure to cold-causing viruses, but colds still manage to spread. We don't test obsessively or quarantine for "the cold."

If "Symptoms don't = contagious virus", how in the world is the virus spreading at such a blistering pace? Is Mina suggesting that literally everyone is getting this thing, including in highly vaccinated populations, by magic? Occam's razor, combined with basic knowledge about how respiratory viruses work, tells us that people who have symptoms are very likely contagious. They might also be contagious before noticeable symptoms arise, and as they subside.

As for viral loads, with Delta, research found that vaccinated individuals were capable of having viral loads as high as unvaccinated individuals[1]. Until there's data about the viral loads with Omicron, it seems dubious for Mina to suggest that the reports of rapid tests failing to pick up omicron infections are related to low viral loads.

Instead, Mina's 5th tweet is worth paying attention to:

https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/14723880511462645...

There is a lot of chatter about how people are getting positive rapid tests when they swab their throats instead of their nasal passages. It's anecdotal at this point, but if we're going to engage in speculation, this seems a much more valid form of inquiry.

The vaccines are very effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and death, and Omicron seems more mild to begin with. It is very effective at spreading in vaccinated populations, which isn't surprising given that the decreasing size of the SARS-CoV-2 naive population means that the virus is now under pressure to select for immune escape. It's strange to me that a "Epidemiologist, Immunologist, Physician" would tweet as if he didn't know this.

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2074