CNN

CNN – Caught in a ‘pickle,’ millions of Americans might not have had an adequate response to the Covid-19 vaccine

By Elizabeth Cohen

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/04/health/covid-19-vaccine-immunosuppressants/index.html

(CNN)It was a beautiful March afternoon, and as June Tatelman walked her dog in her Boston neighborhood, she was flying high.Tatelman had recently received her second dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, and the end of the pandemic was finally in sight. Maybe soon she could play with her grandchildren and return to her volunteer work helping children in foster care. Maybe in a few months, when her husband turned 75, they could go out to a restaurant to celebrate.As she walked, she ran into her family physician — who killed her buzz very quickly.

To treat inflamed blood vessels in her lungs, Tatelman, 73, takes a drug that suppresses her immune system. Her doctor had been reading recent medical studies suggesting the vaccine might not work well for some people taking medications like hers.

He asked her to get a blood test to see if the vaccine had worked — if she had antibodies against the virus.She did the test and had no detectable antibodies against Covid-19.

CNN – Three shots and 1 booster later, this man has little protection against Covid-19

By Christina Zdanowicz, CNN

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/09/health/immunocompromised-covid-19-booster-wellness-trnd/index.html

(CNN)Double-masking, staying at home nearly 24/7 and rarely seeing people beyond his wife are still the way of life for kidney transplant recipient Andrew Linder, even after many in the United States are living like the pandemic has ended.Health officials are recommending third and even fourth shots to boost Covid-19 resistance for people with certain conditions, but that hasn’t eased the fears of some immunocompromised people.Linder, 34, received the life-changing gift of a kidney from his wife, Emily, in September 2019. He will be on immunosuppressants for the rest of his life to keep his body from rejecting the organ.In March 2020, as Covid-19 cases started to shut down workplaces and cities, Emily moved in with her parents for months because she works with the homeless and people in the prison system and did not want to get her husband sick.Andrew and Emily Linder got hitched a month before she gave him a kidney.Andrew and Emily Linder got hitched a month before she gave him a kidney.The coronavirus vaccines brought some hope for the Linders, who live in Akron, Ohio. Andrew Linder had two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and later an additional dose and a booster. Hope quickly turned to heartbreak.”I had no antibodies whatsoever. That was shocking and scary and sucky for sure,” Linder told CNN. “I almost feel just as unsafe or if not potentially a little bit more unsafe now than at the beginning of the pandemic, just for the fact that I could get it at this point in time.”

The pandemic isn’t over for many

Linder is one of many moderately to severely immunocompromised people trying to protect themselves as a number of people across the US are going back to some version of their normal lives.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about 9 million people who live in the US, or about 3% of the population, are moderately to severely immunocompromised. That includes people in active treatment for cancers of the blood or for solid tumors, certain organ transplant and stem cell recipients, people with advanced or untreated HIV, and those who take high-dose corticosteroids or other drugs that may suppress their immune system.

A new study published by the CDC last week suggests people with compromised immune systems may need to receive three doses of a coronavirus vaccine and a booster shot to get as much protection afforded by two doses to those who are not immunocompromised. The effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against Covid-19 hospitalization was 77% among immunocompromised adults versus 90% among immunocompetent adults.For transplant recipients like Linder and some other members of the immunocompromised community, the research showed that vaccine effectiveness was lower than that.

CNN – Families could be denied death benefits if their unvaccinated loved one dies

By Michelle Andrews,

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/03/health/unvaccinated-death-benefits-khn-partner/index.html

These days, workers who refuse to get vaccinated against covid-19 may face financial repercussions, from higher health insurance premiums to loss of their jobs. Now, the financial fallout might follow workers beyond the grave. If they die of covid and weren’t vaccinated, their families may not get death benefits they would otherwise have received.New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority no longer pays a $500,000 death benefit to the families of subway, bus and commuter rail workers who die of covid if the workers were unvaccinated at the time of death.”It strikes me as needlessly cruel,” said Mark DeBofsky, a lawyer at DeBofsky Sherman Casciari Reynolds in Chicago who represents workers in benefit disputes.

Other employers have similar concerns about providing death or other benefits to employees who refuse to be vaccinated.

That’s not how masks work

Apparently, COVID has developed artificial intelligence and knows not to infect people when they’re doing a photo-op.