I watched the first bit of your youtube link – which BTW is of course not proper research – guess what – he is using a green needle – about 5x the width of a covid vaccine needed and 4 times the length

Aspiration of course also increases pain and muscle damage as as its very hard to do without moving the needle around

Your “because of something you read on the internet” is a bit dismissive of the actual medical research I listed.

Not dismissive of the original research. Dismissive of people interpreting and using it to tell the vaccinating staff to deviate from their training and instructions. As per your original question, none of us are going to be telling those giving us our jabs to change what they are doing. Speak to your GP if you have concerns, don’t walk into a vaccination centre trying to get them to change their procedures based on your “internet research”.

based on your “internet research”.

and your lack of undwerstanding of anatomy and proceedure

So from my perspective I don’t think the vaccine is that good at preventing infection but most importantly keeps people from getting really sick – is this now the general thinking from the wider audience?

Precisely this. The vaccine is doing relatively little for transmission. I noted this when delta first emerged in Israel. It spread at the same rate in a vaccinated population as alpha did in an unvaccinated. Hope your family are back feeling better soon and @kelvin too.

Now the joyous news. Having looked across countries and analysed the new (Friday) PHE data on delta plus spread in countries, I think there is a reasonably clear pattern.

U.K. had high cases of delta, that has generated a mutant by immune selection. This is slightly more spreadable and the spread is not contained by vaccination (morbidity looks like it might be) other countries have also seen significant spread of this strain (Germany and Denmark) and some others are just starting to do so (Spain, France and Italy). We are of course, leading the charge. The new strain will reach parity by end of December and replace by February based on current trends.

It will be interesting to see how the vaccines hold up. The reason being that the new strain VOC-21-OCT-01 has the E484 mutation. If that rings a bell, it is because E484K was the South African strain’s immune escape epitope. AZ vaccine did not perform well against this mutation. Also it confers absolute resistance to the antibody bamlanivimab.

Interesting times ahead…

[tl:dr]. High cases of delta in the U.K. has most likely selected a modestly fitter escape mutant. That’s kept cases high here but not in the rest of Europe. It has now spread, and they will be catching us up in the coming months. Get a booster if you are eligible.

BTW I haven’t followed the IM injection debate, but Pfizer is 0.25 mL and I think AZ is 0.5mL. Flu is also 0.5mL. This is a tiny injection. We are giving a LOT more than this for antibody delivery, typically 4mL injections are not unknown. There are guidances for volumes not each muscle. Deltoid is 2-2.5mL, thigh and gluteal (bottom) up to about 5mL.

Thanks TiRed. PCRs came back negative this morning, but other half still getting positive results from LFTs. We volunteered for antigen tests… will be interesting what they say when we get to that point.

The reason being that the new strain VOC-21-OCT-01 has the E484 mutation.

Didn’t see this in any of the news coverage. TiRed bringing us the more interesting information yet again! Someone give him a STW gong…

they will be catching us up in the coming months

Surely that will depend to some degree on whether they go for a “vaccine only” or “vaccine plus” approach over the winter?

Also it confers absolute resistance to the antibody bamlanivimab

Can we play this again…?

“Bamlanivimab”

Try saying that 5… or 9 times fast!

Jimmy tries to pronounce the new COVID antibody treatment https://t.co/Ua2rpQ0D0j #FallonMono #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/LuDHpFuJt2

— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) November 11, 2020

Thanks TiRed,

Does the booster vaccine have to be from the same company as the first two vaccines taken?

I had the AZ shots, given that it is reportedly less effective than other vaccines would it be ok/possible to get another version for a booster shot?

Yeah, very interesting. The Pfizer booster campaign starting to look even more important.

On a side-note, I think the Guardian had a short report about the South West situation suggesting that the recent upsurge in cases may not be variant-driven, but could possibly be linked to the PCR problems at that lab – lot of false negatives getting returned, meaning a lot of infectious people sent out with a clean bill of health to mix with others.

I watched the first bit of your youtube link – which BTW is of course not proper research – guess what – he is using a green needle – about 5x the width of a covid vaccine needed and 4 times the length

he says immediately after picking up the needle that the needle used for the vaccine is not as big as this…

and your lack of undwerstanding of anatomy and proceedure

It was my understanding that there must be blood vessels in the arm muscles – would your arm muscles not wither and die without a blood supply ??

I was assuming that Dr John Campbell, a Senior Lecturer in Nursing studies at the University of Cumbria and an ex clinical nurse, might have that understanding and if he was concerned then it might be a valid concern.

And that Dr. Can Li, Dr. Anna Zhang and Professor Yuen Kwok-Yung, and their team, at the University of Hong Kong, might have some understanding also.

lot of false negatives getting returned

My understanding is that the advice is now that a positive LFT should be treated as overriding a negative PCR because of that. But that change hasn’t really been communicated to the public (or employers) has it? Perhaps Javid could have mentioned it in his coronavirus briefing. Or anything useful at all.

If you say that injecting into a blood vessel can’t happen or that the consequences of it are negligable then you are attributing the myocarditis/pericarditis to the vaccine, which therefore gives ammunition to the anti-vaxxers. (And there has been suggestion that the blood clot issues were similairly caused).

If you are saying that injection into the blood vessels is possible and that the simple act of aspiration removes that risk, then that reduces the ammunition to the anti-vaxxers.

This is why people are researching into it.

How many people have ever bought a lottery ticket?

According to the team at the Uni of HK, the chances of hitting a blood vessel during vaccine administration are nearly 4 times greater than winning the lottery.

Minimal maybe, but the consequences for someone who is active are great – watch the Kyle video for example.

5000 cases in that group he mentions and several suicides.

And he was initially dismissed as having psychological issues for reporting that his heart rate was abnormal, basically because he monitors it closely being an ex top level athlete. When he eventually got past them the specialist basically said he got to them just in time…

Once more

The covid vaccine is given with a tiny needle that cannot go deep enough to hit a major blood vessel – only capillaries. You cannot do an IV injection inadvertently using a 7mm fine needle into the deltoid. Hit a cappiliary and it would just collapse if you tried to inject into it

You also need to understand that youtube videos are not data.

Your link to Dr John Campbell has amongst its first comments a very good explanation of why he is talking balderdash

I know nowt about myocarditis etc – but I have some basic understanding of anatomy. Not all blood vessels are equal

If you say that injecting into a blood vessel can’t happen or that the consequences of it are negligable then you are attributing the myocarditis/pericarditis to the vaccine, which therefore gives ammunition to the anti-vaxxers.

The small risks have always been attributed to the vaccine rather than the delivery technique?

But you are spot on with the lottery ticket analogy – the risks of a serious adverse reaction are in a similar level to a big lotto win. But then I buy tickets more for the wider societal benefits that the lottery fund provides, in the same way that having the vaccine helps others as much as me, by making the chance of me being very ill, very small.

Well, office policy at Singletrack caught my son’s covid before he showed any symptoms! School was closed for a training day so he was going to come in with me – and anyone going into the office has to do a lateral flow test before they head in. Lo and behold, a positive test for him! He had the merest hint of a snotty nose (doing the test was a bit gross) but that was it. By the afternoon he was tired and achy, and he’s especially complaining that it hurts to move his eyes. But still, really really mild symptoms. Which I’m glad of, obviously, but on any other day I’d definitely have sent him off to school as usual. Whoever he caught it off quite likely doesn’t even know they had it.

Well, tell him he’s lucky to be getting over it at half term, and not missing much school. See what the response is…

[ I hope he shrugs it off fast and feels good soon – stay safe ]

—————

The Indy (admittedly no longer a source of great journalism) has a neat little round up of stories as regards pressures on the NHS…

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-nhs-winter-crisis-hospitals-b1943694.html

Which stage are we at right now? Sunak’s coronavirus briefing was classic stage 2… but things could arguable be already moving to stage 3…

…we’ve already had stage 4 at least twice before during this pandemic, anyone betting on us not going through that again wouldn’t get good odds from me.

So the take up of biological materials by blood or lymph is determined by molecular weight. Antibodies are entirely absorbed by lymphatic route. Small peptides via vascular absorption. Vaccines (and these are large structures of encapsulated lipids will most likely be lymphatic. Hence the several days to see a good response.

This is based on studies in sheep, not humans but the translation is likely to be valid based on multiple different molecules.

Just popping in after lurking since day 1 of this thread (it’s been great and thanks for everyone’s input… Kept me sane). My turn to dip in as my whole family is currently in isolation (4 of us) after all testing positive.

Both my wife and I double jabbed (4 months ago each). Eldest gave it to us as a present from school (11 year old). My wife had it badly 2 months ago (confirmed pcr) and now again another confirmed pcr (did not think it was possible to get it twice so close together?)

The kids and I had it in August, by LFT and PCR confirmation, and we were told not to bother doing another PCR until 90 days as the residual antibodies are likely to cause a positive whether you really have it or not.

Ah yes theotherjohn very true… But weirdly my wife kept testing anyway with LFTs twice a week (school guidance for everyone) and the LFT went negative about 4 weeks after the first PCR.

Then most recently she did another LFT just after the result from the positive PCR and the line of doom showed a positive result! Very weird.

As you say though I am not going to do another test for at least 90 days! Hopefully with the double jab and covid last week I should be free of worry for a couple of weeks until the next mutant arrives 🙁

This all sucks doesn’t it

I know nowt about myocarditis etc – but I have some basic understanding of anatomy.

And yet you seems to know more than most doctors and academics – well done…

Your link to Dr John Campbell has amongst its first comments a very good explanation of why he is talking balderdash

You probably didn’t expand his comments then as he goes on to say:

“That said, I have never understood why present day training seems to advise against aspiration prior to intramuscular injection in both medical and nursing courses. Perhaps I am a bit of a dinosaur (graduated medical school in 1995), so I still do it the traditional way. I know full well that the likelihood of inadvertant IV injection with the short, fine needles (as used with Covid-19 and flu vaccination) is practically zero. However, it does no harm to aspirate, seems entirely logical and sensible; and is hardly a huge extra task in the process. I have seen enough freak events happen over my many years of work that I rather not take any chances. I also do not understand the seeming active resistance that some medical and nursing practitioners have when asked by patients to aspirate prior to IM injection. There’s no need to be difficult for something so simple and if it affords the patient a measure of reassurance, surely we should just do so rather than be a**hats about it. ”

and in particular :

“I have seen enough freak events happen over my many years of work that I rather not take any chances”

which equates to the very small chance the HK team suggest.

The first comment after his says

“Forty percent reported having aspirated blood at least once, whereas 6 RNs (4%) noted blood aspiration ≥13 times. Blood aspiration occurred most frequently in the dorsal gluteal (15%) and deltoid (12%)”

which comes from here :

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25784149/

The small risks have always been attributed to the vaccine rather than the delivery technique?

that’s the point, perhaps the very small risks are actually associated with the delivery technique, which is what is being researched. There was another paper a while ago suggesting that the blood clots from the AZ vaccine were actually a side effect of the small chance of hitting a blood vessel.

Don’t bother your vaccination team with this research, let them do their jobs as they are trained to do it. Talk to your GP if you have concerns. As it happens, to me, it all looks like taking several unconnected truths to infer something that isn’t likely to be true at all. Something common with internet expertise. It may not be that, it might well amount to something, but don’t take that… “you have no idea what you are doing, go and look at these selected stories” approach into the vaccination centre or pharmacist, you’ll be wasting their precious time.

Can’t see how linking to published medical reports is ‘Internet expertise”.

It sounds like it’s worth evaluating. But I don’t agree that this is the opinion of “most doctors and academics”

It’s the opinion of some, for sure. What proportion……IDK

I just said that tj’s knowledge seemed to be more than most doctors and academics, I wasn’t implying that the conclusion of this research was held by them.

Seeing what happened to Kyle, as discussed in that video linked to earlier, it is certainly worth consideration.

Here it is again :

Also his video update :

Oh dear

“I just said that tj’s knowledge seemed to be more than most doctors and academics”

Nope – I even qualified that I know nothing really about myocarditis

I know basic anatomy and thus understand why the covid vaccine delivered as mine was cannot inadvertently enter the bloodstream directly

I have given thousands of IM injections going back to the days of big long wide needles and as was common practice used to aspirate. I have never aspirated blood. NOt once.

Youtube videos are not data or evidence

You are making conclusions not supported by the evidence

yes we used to aspirate all IM injections. Then as the equipment improved and the evidence base became clear and we moved to “evidence based practice” this requirement was dropped. some folk will still do it from habit.

But aspiration of small volume IM injections delivered via a short fine needle is not done, not needed and the evidence backs this up. YO simply cannot reach a big enough blood vessel to either aspirate blood or inadvertently deliver it IV – thats why the needle is so short.

I was going to drop this as its buggering up a very good informative thread but I find it hard not to reply when on the end of sarcastic posts like that

Please drop it. If you want to believe your “internet research” trumps decades of real research then do so. don’t keep buggering up this thread

Look TJ can be opinionated and wrong on lots of things, this isn’t one of them, respect the man’s professional expertise and shut up. Plus as other have said the vaccinators will follow their standard procedures regardless of how good your internet research is, that’s how the NHS works, they don’t make it up as they go for very good reasons, they are not the government (who clearly make it up based on the mornings papars).

So we are saying that TJ has more in-depth professional expertise than the team that wrote that paper at the University of Hong Kong?

OK.

No were saying tj’s real world experience and training tops you doing your own research on the internet and drawing your own conclusions.

bullshotcrummond
Free Member

So we are saying that TJ has more in-depth professional expertise than the team that wrote that paper at the University of Hong Kong?

We’re saying that TJ has a career of experience which involved using best practice evolved by the entire medical profession over years, the same best practice which is being used for the vaccine delivery. This is not “do it TJ’s way because TJ says so”, this is “TJ has been trained in this and he’s sharing”, he’s not relying on his own expertise.

Ah – you’re a “new” visitor to STW. If you’d been around a bit longer you might have been more aware of TJs professional expertise.

Still at least it didn’t take you long to pick up on referring to tjagain as TJ.

Thanks for the vote of confidence chaps

The NHS does not always get stuff right and is sometimes slow to react to changing paradigms but these days its all ” evidence based practice” and while I have not read all the research I trust those who provide the policies and procedures to base this on the evidence and then minions like me follow this. This is one place where the practice changed in response to the evidence.

No were saying tj’s real world experience and training tops you doing your own research on the internet and drawing your own conclusions.

I haven’t done my own research on the Internet – it is a published paper from a team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong – all I am guessing a lot more qualified than TJ (bsed on him moaning about his level of earnings and pension from the NHS…)

The video discussion is also from someone I am guessing is also a lot more qualified and experienced with the NHS than TJ as he used to train nurses.

Best practise used to include aspirating – now it doesn’t as the NHS think the risk/reward profile doesn’t justify it.

Clearly some well-qualified people think that this might be a suspect conclusion for the case of the mRNA vaccines, otherwise they would not have researched it.

As the video interview was with a very prominent mountain biker who has been severely affected by what Dr John Campbell thinks has the hall-marks of a misapplied injection (based on his many years of experience in the NHS…) my original question was whether anyone else thought that it might be worth asking for aspiration as it only takes an extra 10 seconds and that hassle might be worth the possible risk of not being ‘crippled’ for 9 months or so and unable to cycle, and then hoping that you are not left with any permanent damage to the heart.

If you want your injection to be done in a different way, talk to your GP, they will look after you. Don’t walk into a vaccination centre or pharmacists and ask the staff there to ignore the guidance and training they have received. You won’t just waste “10 seconds” in doing so, it’ll take longer than that for them to patiently listen to you explaining what you think they’ve been doing wrong. You’ll more likely see exasperation than aspiration.

This bullshitcrummond chappie is sounding more and more like a previous banned poster on here.

*Long explanation of the mechanics of injection deleted*

Its been explained to you why you do not aspirate, its been explained to you why its a really bad idea to ask the vaccinators to do it

Please dude – take this off this thread and stop stinking up what is a truely informative thread

Evidence base

The procedure for IM injection has been discussed widely in the literature but there are concerns that nurses are still performing outdated and ritualistic practice relating to site selection, aspirating back on the syringe (Greenway, 2014) and skin cleansing.

Aspiration

It is common practice to draw back on a syringe after the needle is inserted to check whether it is in a blood vessel. While it is important to aspirate if the DG muscle site is used – because of proximity to the gluteal artery – it is not required for other IM injection sites (PHE, 2013; Malkin, 2008).

Proper, refernced evidenced based practice

this might help you understand and might lead you to realising your confusion The whole article is informative
From

Injection technique 1: administering drugs via the intramuscular route

One suspects our time has not been entirely wasted.

Bandits at six o’clock…

So now they’re saying the practise itself is unsafe?

It’s almost like they’re running out of things to scare you with.

If you say that injecting into a blood vessel can’t happen or that the consequences of it are negligable then you are attributing the myocarditis/pericarditis to the vaccine, which therefore gives ammunition to the anti-vaxxers.

That was the bit that threw me – I’m not aware that anyone, anti-vaxxers included, has been suggesting that the very small risk of side effects was due to the method of injection.

It wouldn’t be a study in the same way, but….

If NHS practise changed a number of years ago so we have a pre- and post- aspiration as normal era

and lack of aspiration is the cause of the myocarditis (OK, injection into veins instead of muscle is but YKWIM)

– how much has myocarditis increased in the last 10 years since injection practise changed, given all the IM injections that must have been given in that time?

See the Torygraph are reporting according to government modelling “cases will ‘plummet’ in November”.

^^^

well we’ll run out of unvaccinated schoolkids sooner or later….

– how much has myocarditis increased in the last 10 years since injection practise changed, given all the IM injections that must have been given in that time?

It depends on what you are injecting I would suppose.

The mice study linked to showed that the mRNA vaccine has a strong link to myopcarditis if injected into the blood vessels.

The consequences of injecting other vaccines might well be different, and probably because those consequences were lower then any side effect from misapplication wouldn’t be noticed so much.