3 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

27 cases reported today at our high school. We only had two days in all of March where a case wasn't reported. Spread is out of control right now.

I think the numbers we need to look at are deaths and hospitalizations not how many people get it, those seem to be going down at least a bit, don't be so negative

8 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

It's this:

Yeah, but isn't the US as a whole remaining roughly the same over the past month?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

8 hours ago, Joe Shades 73 said:

I think the numbers we need to look at are deaths and hospitalizations not how many people get it, those seem to be going down at least a bit, don't be so negative

Both are up here

48 minutes ago, paco said:

Yeah, but isn't the US as a whole remaining roughly the same over the past month?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Yes, but the concern is what might happen if these variants start to take root in other states. It's a race between that happening and vaccinating populations of each state. We're currently losing that race locally here in MI, but hopefully we'll catch back up in the next couple weeks.

22 hours ago, mikemack8 said:

What state are you in?  PA opened it up to everyone last week or two weeks ago I believe

April 19th is the open to everyone. 

Another co-worker is out sick and went to get a covid test.  That would make 4 in the last month or so if they're positive.  Might not make it 2 more weeks.

Pfizer jab # 2 today!  

FEMA is giving funds to help cover burial costs to those who died from COVID.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly-tips/covid-funeral-expenses-fema-reimbursement-20210402.html

28 minutes ago, Smokesdawg said:

Pfizer jab # 2 today!  

I've heard from quite a few people that the second one can knock your on your ass for a day. I get my second one next week. Let us know how it goes. 

Has anyone had the antibodies test before getting the shot to see if they had COVID without realizing it? 

1 hour ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Has anyone had the antibodies test before getting the shot to see if they had COVID without realizing it? 

I thought about it.  I know a couple People who did because they either thought they had it or had tested positive previously, but none of them had positive tests for antibodies, Even the 2 that had positive covid tests.  So I’m not sure that an antibody test would be reliable in determining if you should still get the vaccine.  It’s unknown how long the antibodies from an infection last.   I do know they say you should be waiting 90 days after having covid, but I have also seen reports of pretty severe reactions (over active immense responses) to the vaccine in people who have had covid.  The general thinking is it wouldn’t kill you but you may feel like dog crap for a while.  

 

1 hour ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Has anyone had the antibodies test before getting the shot to see if they had COVID without realizing it? 

We thought we had it back last february where the whole family was sick for like a month straight.  Took the antibody test in June and came up as negative.... oh well.  

7 minutes ago, Smokesdawg said:

We thought we had it back last february where the whole family was sick for like a month straight.  Took the antibody test in June and came up as negative.... oh well.  

That's not a definitive test I'm afraid

6 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Both are up here

Overall though in the country it looks like deaths are way down.

1 minute ago, Joe Shades 73 said:

Overall though in the country it looks like deaths are way down.

How's your father doing?

9 minutes ago, DiPros said:

How's your father doing?

Thanks for asking . Still in hospital but no longer on oxygen, his levels are good and the cough is going away. I guess they will keep in in a few more days to be safe

4 hours ago, Smokesdawg said:

Pfizer jab # 2 today!  

 

4 hours ago, Gannan said:

I've heard from quite a few people that the second one can knock your on your ass for a day. I get my second one next week. Let us know how it goes. 

 

I got the second one last week - didn't feel a thing.  Actually felt worse from the first one. 

I had a couple people tell me to drink a ton of water after you get the second one.  Apparently it's supposed to help. 

1 hour ago, Joe Shades 73 said:

Thanks for asking . Still in hospital but no longer on oxygen, his levels are good and the cough is going away. I guess they will keep in in a few more days to be safe

That's good to hear. Hope he keeps getting better and can go home soon.

There’s no way this is real, right?  If it is, I don’t wanna live on this planet anymore.  
 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/cbsaustin.com/amp/news/nation-world/researchers-in-mexico-unveil-nose-only-covid-19-mask-for-use-while-eating-drinking-pandemic-coronavirus

38,000 people showed up to spread COVID in Texas.

18 hours ago, Gannan said:

I've heard from quite a few people that the second one can knock your on your ass for a day. I get my second one next week. Let us know how it goes. 

 

14 hours ago, hukdonfoniks said:

 

 

I got the second one last week - didn't feel a thing.  Actually felt worse from the first one. 

I had a couple people tell me to drink a ton of water after you get the second one.  Apparently it's supposed to help. 

15 hours in. Feeling virtually nothing. Arm slightly sore. Back slightly sore. Tired last night before bed. Woke up feeling fine. 🤞

Quote

New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey together reported 44% of the nation’s new COVID-19 infections, or nearly 197,500 new cases, in the latest available seven-day period, according to state health agency data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Total U.S. infections during the same week numbered more than 452,000.

I wonder how much of this surge is thanks to Spring Break?

I think it's all of the Rangers fans coming into Michigan just to make that state look bad.

42 minutes ago, sameaglesfan said:

I think it's all of the Rangers fans coming into Michigan just to make that state look bad.

Hard not to blame a state with Dallas in it.

Great, concise explanation for the nonspecialists, and a testament to the incredible achievements @we_gotta_believe has stressed in this thread. This really is awesome technology that can only be attributed to true scientific genius. Go humanity!

 

Quote

The powerful technology behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines

Health Apr 2, 2021 6:44 PM EDT

Two of the three COVID-19 vaccines that have been authorized so far in the United States use synthetic messenger RNA, or mRNA, to protect against the coronavirus. Though these vaccines — developed by Pfizer and Moderna, respectively — are the first of their kind to be used at this scale, this historic moment would not be possible without the decades of research that came before it.

There are lots of different ways to make a vaccine, but the ultimate goal of any shot is to introduce the body to the biological equivalent of a "most wanted” poster so that if the real enemy ever shows up, our immune systems know how to fight it off.

For some vaccines, that poster is a version of a pathogen that’s been weakened — like the chickenpox shot — or inactivated — like most flu shots — so that it can’t actually cause infection. For others, including the HPV and shingles vaccines, it’s a piece of that pathogen, like the specific protein it uses to infect cells in the first place.

But mRNA vaccines take a different approach. Rather than tinkering with the virus or its parts, this platform harnesses the "beauty of our biology” to deliver protection, said RNA virologist Paul Duprex, who directs the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research. These vaccines teach the body to remember one of the coronavirus’ defining features — its spike protein — and prompt the creation of antibodies that can prevent it from infecting cells.

Our DNA resides inside the nucleus of our cells. Every day, mRNA molecules constantly carry genetic information coded in that DNA from the nucleus to the parts of the cells, called ribosomes, that can interpret those messages and then make the proteins that carry out essential biological processes. Without it, life would be impossible.

"Pretty much every single cell in my body at this particular moment is producing billions and billions and billions of messenger RNAs,” Duprex said.

READ MORE: The essential COVID-19 vaccine FAQ

Vaccines that use synthetic mRNA add one more type of mRNA to the legion of other molecules "doing their daily business” within our bodies, and use it "to make a protein which the immune system will see and make antibodies against and protect us from a disease,” Duprex added.

Around 20 years ago, the work of two researchers — Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó — helped overcome two primary barriers that had been standing in the way of utilizing mRNA technology: an inflammatory effect on the body that made test animals ill, and the fragile nature of the molecule itself, both of which hindered its utility.

Despite those advancements, and the wealth of research that’s been carried out since, the fact remains that the two mRNA vaccines in use today are the first of their kind. That may be in part because it’s difficult to generate interest and funding to support pursuing "non-mainstream” science outside of a crisis, Duprex said — what he characterized as "a shortsighted way to think about biology.”

Only now, amid a devastating pandemic, has this technology reached mainstream prominence. "Given the choice, I would have rather avoided this past year,” Weissman said. "But we didn’t, and now RNA is going to be our future.”

Here’s a look at how, exactly, these vaccines manage to pull off this feat and some of the key research breakthroughs that made this moment possible.

How messenger RNA vaccines work

In order to develop these vaccines, researchers took the RNA-based genetic sequence of the coronavirus and turned it into DNA. This crucial step allowed them to identify the "instructions” necessary to create the spike protein, engineer corresponding synthetic mRNA and package that into their vaccines.

mRNA, as its moniker implies, is a messenger. This particular type of RNA is tasked with delivering messages to microscopic cellular machines called ribosomes, located in the cytoplasm of our cells, which are responsible for synthesizing proteins. Those ribosomes then interpret that message to make proteins and start executing its instructions, explained Phillip Sharp, a molecular biologist and MIT professor who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his contribution to our understanding of RNA.

Dendritic cells, the watchdogs of the immune system, play an essential role in responding to pathogens. They patrol the body in search of foreign invaders and, when they find one, start stimulating an immune response. When these cells encounter mRNA that’s been injected via vaccination, their ribosomes decode the message and allow the cells to temporarily display spike proteins identical to the ones found on the coronavirus’s exterior, Weissman said.

"Dendritic cells make the spike protein and then they present it to other immune cells and activate them to start the immune response,” he added.

An animated visual of the coronavirus. Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour

What does the coronavirus look like?

Like the other members of its viral family, SARS-CoV-2 — the official name for the coronavirus — is an RNA virus. Simply put, each individual virus is composed of single strands of genetic material protected by a fatty outer layer that’s coated in spike proteins. Those "spikes” are what the virus uses to hijack our cells and use our molecular machinery to make more copies of itself.

The proteins allow the dendritic cells to alert two more key players in the immune system — T cells and B cells — that if they see those same spikes on any other cell, they should recognize them as a foreign invaders and either destroy them or generate antibodies to neutralize them immediately.

"There’s a memory component of those cell populations, and that stays in your body over a long period of time,” Sharp said. "If a similar virus infects you, those memory cells are ready to go. They are all perfected to go out and kill that virus.”

mRNA naturally degrades rapidly over time, so once it has served its purpose, it simply breaks down. The dendritic cells that expressed the spike protein eventually die and are replaced by new ones that continue to pick up that vaccine-delivered mRNA and repeat the process all over again in the course of about two weeks following immunization.

Some members of the public have expressed concern over unfounded speculation that these vaccines could negatively affect the body. But it is impossible for an mRNA vaccine to alter your DNA because synthetic mRNA operates only in the cytoplasm and is incapable of entering any other parts of our cells, such as the nucleus.

Like virtually all vaccines, those that use mRNA can trigger temporary symptoms like a fever, fatigue and soreness at the injection site that dissipate within a few days. But clinical trials that took place before the vaccines were authorized, as well as those that have followed, all suggest that these vaccines are both safe and effective at preventing serious illness and death.

"It’s always, always much more risky to get the disease than it is to get the vaccine,” Duprex said.

How did we get here?

mRNA was first injected into the muscles of mice in 1990 with the intention to deliver therapeutic proteins. But that effort "didn’t go very far,” according to Weissman, in large part due to the strong inflammatory response it induced, which severely sickened the animals involved.

That’s because in both animals and humans, cells feature a number of different receptors that can recognize mRNA as a foreign substance that must be destroyed. Those receptors help these cells distinguish their fellow cells from invaders like viruses, bacteria or even tumor cells.

Both RNA and DNA are composed of four nucleotides. More than a decade after that first injection in mice, Weissman and Karikó, who now serves as senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to manufacture their joint vaccine, figured out a way to insert an modified nucleotide that allows the synthetic mRNA to masquerade as a normal cell and circumvent those receptors, no longer triggering extreme inflammation. It also made the mRNA-spurred protein production more efficient.

"Our big discovery was that we could modify the RNA to make it non-inflammatory. And that had a couple of important features to it, but the first was that it greatly increased the amount of protein made off of the RNA,” which increased potency, Weissman said.

With the inflammation problem solved, Weissman and Karikó then turned to tweaking how mRNA is delivered so it could actually do its job once injected into the body. mRNA is an inherently "labile,” or unstable, material that can degrade rapidly to the point of being rendered ineffective.

After testing around 40 different types of delivery systems, the researchers found their golden ticket: lipid nanoparticles. These "droplets of fat” coat the mRNA and allow it to successfully enter our cells, which are also encapsulated in an oily substance.

Traditional vaccines are typically formulated with adjuvants that are designed to stimulate the immune response in their recipients. In what Weissman described as a lucky development, lipid nanoparticles happened to act as an adjuvant that stimulated a specific type of "helper cell” that promotes antibody responses.

"We use the lipid nanoparticles to get over a lot of the fragility [problems] because that protected the [mRNA] after you injected it into people, and it promoted these cells to take up the [mRNA] and start the vaccine process,” Weissman said.

Where mRNA stands today

In the years since Weissman and Karikó made these breakthroughs, mRNA research has continued to march on. Weissman and his current colleagues have worked on a variety of mRNA vaccines, including a "universal” flu shot that could cover a majority of influenza viruses and has so far proven to be effective in animal trials.

Compared to traditional vaccine platforms that require a series of complex steps, like growing mammalian cells in massive quantities and a viral purification process that looks different depending on the pathogen you’re working with, mRNA is now easy to manufacture at a fairly large scale.

Instead of needing "to reinvent the wheel every time you make a new vaccine,” Weissman said, "with [mRNA,] it’s the same reaction, and the only thing you have to do is plug in the new sequence for any virus, so that makes it very easy to produce a new vaccine.”

Both Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines generated above 90 percent protection after two doses during clinical trials that played out before new variants of the virus marginally reduced their efficacy. Even so, the two give recipients remarkably high levels of protection, particularly against severe disease and death.

The CDC recently released new research that found these vaccines reduce a fully vaccinated person’s chance of getting infected with the coronavirus by 90 percent in "real-world” settings like the workplace.

Given that no vaccines have ever been approved to immunize people against any kind of coronavirus, and that the FDA’s original hope was to secure one with at least 50 percent efficacy to curb the pandemic, these results represent yet another significant milestone in annals of RNA technology.

Much more research lies ahead for these vaccines, both of which have been rolled out in the United States and in some other countries over the past few months. In addition to continuing to track safety and efficacy data, researchers need to know how well these vaccines prevent recipients from transmitting COVID-19 and how long the protection they offer lasts. Until we know the answers to those questions, recipients should keep following pandemic precautions like wearing a mask, even after they’ve gotten their two doses, experts say.

READ MORE: How to stay safe from COVID this summer, according to experts

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, a one dose shot that uses a different yet similarly innovative platform to deliver immunity compared to mRNA, has also been authorized for use in the United States. Its strong efficacy and ability to be stored at a less strict temperature range makes experts hopeful that the rollout of this vaccine will help close some gaps in vaccine access both in this country and abroad.

In tackling COVID-19, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines have "paved the way,” Duprex said, when it comes to illustrating the utility of synthetic mRNA. And yet, while he anticipates that researchers will "only get better” at making tweaks that allow for better delivery and stability of this technology, he notes that we’re still in the early days of harnessing its utility — we also can’t assume that mRNA is "the next big panacea” that will solve all of our problems.

But, Duprex said, "the beautiful thing about this is this just gives us another brush for the palette of novel therapeutics [and] novel ideas that somebody in the next generation of scientists are going to be able to [use to] paint.”

 

By —

Isabella Isaacs-Thomas

Isabella Isaacs-Thomas is a news assistant at the PBS NewsHour.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-powerful-technology-behind-the-pfizer-and-moderna-vaccines?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=newshour&utm_content=1617458521