Gotcha.
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There may be several things adults should be re-vaxxing for.
Whooping cough comes to mind. New parents are urged to get shots. If a person hasnât had any babies in the family for several years, they ought to check into vaccination. Actually getting whooping cough can be a 3 month misery.
Since Iâm apt to be puttering around outside I get a tetanus shot every 10 years. Tho Iâve heard 5 is now recommended.
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Note that this is for the US. Live oral poliovirus (OPV) vaccines are still is use in many countries and the NY case is believed to be OPV-derived.
Lots more detail here:
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SoâŠour recent 3 week cross country road trip ended up being very Covid-adjacent. 
A couple of people were interested in the Covid related details, so here they areâŠ
We left home July 9 with 2 objectives: attend a wedding in MN on July 16 and visit DD21 in OH the following weekend. (She flew to MN for the weekend to attend the wedding with us then flew back to OH.)
On July 10, I get the âcall me when you canâ text from DM. The bride (my step-sisterâs daughter) just tested positive for Covid. Sheâs symptomatic and trying to rest and everything is up in the air with no decisions made so they arenât announcing anything yet, but they are quietly contacting all of us traveling in from out-of-state in case we want to rethink travel plans.
We decide to carry on with the plan, wedding or not. DM also moves forward with flying directly to MN, wedding or not.
Announcement is responsibly made to all guests on Monday.
Luckily, the wedding/reception was already planned to be outside in their backyard. The Thur bridal shower is cancelled. Fri rehearsal/dinner is still on, but everyone is expected to stay outside. Portapotties are brought in so no one needs to enter the house. Anyone going inside for any reason should mask.
^ Ceremony site (the rest of the chairs were under the reception tent at this point)
Apparently a number of the wedding party are supposed to be staying at the bride and groomâs house, arriving at various times. The maid of honor also came up positive, so she joined the bride isolating in the basement of the house for the week. The groom stayed upstairs. The rest of the wedding party got shuffled to tents in the yard:
Much discussion in my immediate family about how to proceed at the Fri/Sat events. We decide to attend everything, but no one should go inside at all. Mask when using the portapotties. We also masked upon arrival for welcome hugs and then generally tried to keep a 2-3â distance from others but tried not to stress too much about it. Both days, most people were pretty good about popping a mask on before hugging us when they saw that was what we were doing.
We did get quick masked, outside hugs from the bride on Friday.
The bride wore her mask for almost the entire rehearsal except for a few pictures and to eat, and she carefully kept it on while mingling.
Party favors: 
There were also masks available.
The grandparents and others with vulnerabilities did a good job of masking at both events when mingling, mostly just removing masks to eat. My stepsisterâs stepdad is undergoing cancer treatments and was trying so hard to stay masked on Friday but kept slipping off away from everyone for mask-free breaks. He was really struggling to breath through his surgical mask, so I fetched him an unused Powecom KN95 from the van, and he did much better with that. On Saturday, I asked if his wife (my stepsisterâs mom) wanted one, and she jumped at it, so I bagged up a few for them along with the website to order more. Wish we could get everyone in that age group into upgraded masks!
The groom tested negative daily, including twice on the day of the wedding. I think the bride still tested positive on Friday, but I didnât hear about Saturday. I tried to clear up some confusion several people had about continuing to test positive on antigen tests vs PCRs, but not sure they believed me.
Yes, the groom kissed the bride at the wedding (and reception), but they sat together at a table away from everyone else. The bride and her dad masked for their dance.
Unfortunately, the brideâs stepmom came up with symptoms and tested positive Saturday morning so didnât attend. I think the timeline was that they flew in on Thursday and didnât interact with anyone from the wedding party until Friday evening, so I guess she was positive when she arrived? One of her daughters came up positive a few days later, but they were the only ones besides the bride and maid of honor that I heard about. Everyone seems to be recovering ok.
The Wednesday after the wedding, DS12.2 had cold symptoms but tested negative for 5 days straight. I had symptoms starting overnight Friday and tested negative 4 days straight. We were with DD21 in Ohio that weekend and she got cold symptoms after we left. DS12.1 started symptoms on Monday and tested negative 2 days straight. We stopped testing at that point because we were road tripping and not interacting with anyone except quick masked restroom stops and the like. And weâd taken 11 tests already! DS18 had symptoms the following weekend when we arrived home and tested negative Mon-Wed (to get cleared to get his wisdom teeth out on Wed). So. Just a cold.
Unfortunately, the brideâs sister didnât attend, but it was a sensible decision. She just had a new baby in June, so didnât want to risk getting infected and exposing him. We had her on FaceTime during the ceremony.
Also, the relative that was miffed at me about insisting he get tested before speaking at my stepdadâs funeral last summer when he had cold symptoms seems to have forgiven me. So thatâs a relief.
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Oh Iâm so sorry that covid caused trouble with your relativesâ wedding. That is tough. I hope that everyone was still able to enjoy the joyful moments.
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I remember a sugar cube and it was purple / pink. I was born a few yrs after you.
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I think everyone did a good job of really trying to make the best of it.
What was the most impressive was how supportive everyone was to each other. Rather than âyou are responsible for your own safetyâ the vibe was very much âis there anything I can do to support your risk avoidance level?â
And theyâre a great couple. Two great people that are even better together.
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Thanks for sharing this. We just attended a family wedding indoors, and we were the only ones wearing masks except for the grandparents, who took theirs off halfway through the wedding ceremony. Itâs a tricky social situation, but we kept our N95âs on except for 1 minute for the wedding photographs.
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The entire thing involved a lot of flexibility and compromise, but I thought they handled it about as well as they could. It was definitely an exercise in trying to balance competing priorities. DD21 is planning a wedding for next June, so we took a lot of notes, both on traditional aspects and Covid aspects.
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CO2 monitoring update - Montreal travel edition
<500ppm ~ outdoors, <1000 good, 1000-2000 stale, >2000 bad.
Roots retail store: 850-950. Better in the front near the door.
Pandora retail store: ~850.
House of worship, 1500 sq ft, 9â ceiling, 10 people, 90 min service, light singing: 450-600. ~40 year old office tower construction.
Commentary: I had my N95 off at the beginning but put it on when the reading got to 550.
House of worship, 300 sq ft, 12â ceiling, 12 people, 30 min service, no singing: 500-525
Commentary: excellent ventilation for a relatively confined space. New building.
Montreal subway (MĂ©tro):
Station, lightly crowded: 450-500. I took my N95 off.
Subway train: lightly crowded: 450-500. N95 off.
Commentary: Montrealâs subway was designed with natural ventilation built in. Air is sucked in and out of the system by the moment of the trains themselves (air piston effect). The trains have no AC like in NYC, instead a natural draft of fresh air keeps you cool. That design comes in very handy during COVID and results in near-outdoor levels of CO2 (450-500), as compared to the NYC subway which was in the 800-900 range. Montreal subway airflow video here, itâs in French but has lots of pictorials.
Whatâs interesting too is that the NYC MTA claims 18 air changes per hour (ACPH) in its subway cars, according to the NYT, while the Montreal STM (subway authority) claims only 7-8, but my CO2 readings suggest thereâs more to fresh air than raw mechanical ACPH. Thereâs something about the Montreal subway design that inherently results in the entire systemâs air being fresher. Perhaps additional airflow when doors open, or air flow design in in the cars - Montrealâs cars were replaced just a few years ago.
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That would have driven me nuts as someone firmly in the first camp, as you know. Just not me. Glad the attendants were of similar mindset to you so you could fully enjoy it.
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How much different were the crowd levels?
It was a very small scale experiment, but my experience in the oral surgeon waiting room showed a fairly large impact by number of people. That could be overriding the ACPH?
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Indeed. Flexibility, compromise, and sensitivity are key when getting together with people who are in a different place in their approach to COVID. Kudos to the bride for being transparent about her testing positive. That takes courage.
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You mean, how did crowd levels differ in the Montreal vs NYC subway? Answer: they were comparable: lightly crowded in both. Def. not a pre-COVID NYC packed subway car situation. Like, most seats filled, but no/very few standees.
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I managed to catch up on Baylor College of Medicine Covid updates!
A few interesting slides from this week:
(Keep in mind the case numbers are likely very underreported so the magnitudes arenât likely comparable, but variant makeup is worth noting.)
The latest surge seems to have peaked in Houston:
2 recent studies investigating the source of the original Covid outbreak:
Also, I happened across an interview with Paul Offit (member of the FDA VRBPAC advisory committee) that had a few interesting bits:
Regarding a new bivalent Covid vaccine (original + BA.4/5)âŠwhile the concept makes sense, to support roll out, he will need to see actual clinical improvement in effectiveness, not just lab data on increases in neutralizing antibodies. He hasnât seen that sort of data yet. [Which to me seems to make the potential for a September rollout rather tight]
Regarding childhood vaccine hesitancy in general, he unfortunately thinks it is going to take the actual return of preventable childhood diseases to turn around declining vaccine uptake.
He thinks any Covid bump this winter wonât be as bad as the last two, with the caveat that he tends to be optimistic about such things so could be wrong.
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It will be interesting to see if the FDA moves forward without clinical data or not. But Pfizer doesnât sound like it will be available until at least October. Keeping an eye out for something recent on Moderna.
https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1556630716800126976?s=21&t=sT3PbkAkxBWoeyfwjcAMxg
ETA: If there is a paywall on the FT article, this might work:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fb6825ee8-3631-4f1c-a4e0-119802c7bb7d
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Adams is a former US Surgeon General. 
This should skip the paywall:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fopinion%2Fcolumnist%2F2022%2F08%2F08%2Fmonkeypox-emergency-schools-colleges-prepare%2F10196217002%2F
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It occurs to me to post our post-trip illness experience after being in the World 25 June - 3 July. The kid apparently traveled home with a cold. Our last 2 days were a big karate tournament - the sinus stuffiness felt like after competition dehydration. Once home we all realized, itâs a cold. Very stobbed up nose and ears. We arrived home Sunday and by the next weekend I could tell I had the cold - much milder than the kid tho symptoms for both of us lasted easily 2 weeks, closer to 3 for the kid. DH started with symptoms a day or so before I did, with a pale yellow tinge to his usual copd mucus. I began giving him the antibiotics we always have on hand and within 3 days he had clear mucus again. (I found this interesting) His sypmtoms were so mild as to be almost non-existent. Our 4th travel member - a fellow robotics person - went immediately on our arrival day to Scout camp for a week. Never had any symptoms.
In the airport - St Louis terminal 2 - we did not mask until joining the boarding group. The two teens and I masked for the duration of the flight(s). DH had the window seat - he did not mask and I did not insist. I made sure the air was directed downward. A stranger sat in the aisle seat on both out going and returning flights. The two teens sat in another row.
The teens toured on their own, deciding when to mask. DH and I mostly enjoyed outdoor benches - no masking. Most of our masking probably occurred at the two day karate tournament and on airplanes.
Sigh.
Langya henipavirus.
I have no idea what that even is. And I just canât bring myself to dive into it. But itâs on the freaking bingo card somewhere, Iâm sure.
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If you know anyone dealing with Long Covid and/or lingering negative after effects of a Covid vaccination, Yale is doing a research study. One of the lead researchers is Akiko Iwasaki, who was interviewed on Andy Slavittâs podcast awhile back, and her research sounded promising.
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