Speaker 2 00:00:59 And good evening. Thank you for joining disability and progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. This is cafe 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and kvi.org. If you'd like to be on our email list, you make email
[email protected]. My name is Sam I'm the host of the show. Charlene doll is my research team. Good evening, Charlene. Good
Speaker 0 00:01:25 Evening, everyone.
Speaker 2 00:01:26 Hi, you didn't think I had you on, did you
Speaker 0 00:01:29 Know? I believe in you. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:01:31 Oh, well, you're one of the few, well, tonight we have Dr. Jill foster, Dr. Foster is the director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases that, um, at the university of Minnesota medical school. And she's really happy to be here, I think. Yeah. She offered to come in. It's great. And we're going to be talking about vaccines and COVID and adults and kids and kids that act like adults or adults that act like kids. Wait. That's a lot of people nowadays. Um, okay, so thank you, Jill. Thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. Oh, no, I'm glad to, um, you, you were here with us again and we, we always appreciate repeat guests. Um, last time we talked about COVID it was right in the thick of things. Um, so for those who didn't join us last time, can you give a quick description of about what COVID is? So COVID is a virus. It's actually a much
Speaker 0 00:02:35 Longer name for the actual
Speaker 2 00:02:37 Virus itself, but COVID is actually the disease
Speaker 0 00:02:40 That comes from the virus.
Speaker 2 00:02:42 That first came to us in about
Speaker 0 00:02:44 January of 2020 entered the United States probably then, and has been with us in is, is sort of a nasty bug that comes and then goes away for a little bit and then comes back even stronger. What
Speaker 2 00:02:59 Are some of the symptoms? And, um, have they changed throughout the time?
Speaker 0 00:03:05 They haven't changed much. Um, what they are is it's sorta like a bad flu. It's really prominent. It is coughing and a high fever. And then that usually progresses to having body aches all over. Um, one thing that has changed as a little bit is that back in the beginning, we said about half the people that had COVID, um, didn't have any symptoms at all, but were positive for COVID and now we're getting fewer and fewer of those, no symptom people, and pretty much most people that have COVID these days are having symptoms from it.
Speaker 2 00:03:41 So how many different kinds of strains are there now and are some more contagious than others? Yes,
Speaker 0 00:03:48 Definitely. We're right now in the Delta. Um, all the, the strains are named after Greek letters and we're starting to run out through the Greek alphabet at this point to ombre Delta. Um, there's, uh, eight major strains. We started with alpha and now our Delta there's another one called new that's kind of out there in the height horizon that we don't know exactly what that's going to mean for us. Um, but it seems like each one that comes is a little bit more able to pass from one person to another and a little bit causes a little bit more serious problems.
Speaker 2 00:04:24 Yes. Well, we're going to get into those serious problems, but, um, talk about, um, the one thing that I've, I've seen, uh, more and more of lately is something called long COVID and I didn't, you know, I heard about it and I'm like, yeah, yeah. But I recently spoke to a real good friend of mine whose entire family got COVID before the vaccine came out and he has like, his daughter has just huge lung COVID effects. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and what the effects generally are? Sure. Well, there's,
Speaker 0 00:05:02 There's two things that happen after you have COVID. So the first is if you're really seriously ill and in the hospital and ICU on a ventilator, which is a pretty big number of people right now, um, there's all the effects that you would have from any other illness that you were in the ICU, you know, weakness and, you know, damage to the lungs, but COVID is different as this long COVID is really kind of unrelated to how sick you were in the beginning. And even people that just had mild. COVID what we're finding is that there's, these affects that linger for months, um, being tired, one of the big, like tired, tired, like you, you have a day of normal activity and then you have to stay in bed the next day. Not just like, oh, I'm tired tonight. Like I had a hard day. Wow. Second thing is called brain fog. Um, which is just like, you just can't quite get your thoughts together. Like sort of imagine, like you were wake up in the middle of the night and would try to process things, you know, out of a deep sleep it's, it's kind of that kind of thing that
Speaker 2 00:06:04 It's so scary to me for somebody who uses my brain for so much. Um, and, and does depends on a lot of memory. Um, I, I, I always wondered, you know, even in back when the started coming out, like if people are getting this incredibly sick or staying this sick after, what is it really doing inside of us?
Speaker 0 00:06:29 Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. And I mean, I think this virus is unlike any virus that I've seen before. A lot of people say, it's, you know, it's a bad cold, or it's like the flu, but you have a bad cold and you have a bad flu. You don't feel bad a month later. Um, but it is really scary. And, and probably the, I mean, some of the long-term effects are damaged that the virus did to you. Um, and the other long-term effects though, is that your immune system was fighting the virus and sometimes in fighting the virus, it kind of fights you to,
Speaker 2 00:07:02 So, um, do we know about it much? Do we know, are there studies that are happening from, with the long COVID people? Well, that's,
Speaker 0 00:07:14 They're just really getting started at a big scale. The folks down at Mayo, down the road, um, have been doing studies and have found, you know, actually have a whole clinical program for, uh, we're starting to have a program here at the U. Um, a big study just got funded by the national institutes of health to really look at people around the country and be able to, you know, get tens of thousands of people. You know, unfortunately, you know, millions of people have been infected. And so there's tens of thousand people to, uh, to look at
Speaker 2 00:07:44 When we talk about the term long COVID, you know, what are we talking about? Is it a month? Is it three months? Is it, what is it,
Speaker 0 00:07:55 You know, I mean, right now, it, it could be a year. It could, we, you know, we're coming up on two years, it'll be two years in January. And there are people that are still having symptoms. I mean, I had, COVID very early in things. I moved here from the east coast and it was hard to avoid it if you lived on the east coast. And one of the things that happened with me that just kind of weird for COVID is I lost my sense of smell and I still don't totally have my sense of smell back. And, you know, and that's, that's a sort of a, a long effect of COVID
Speaker 2 00:08:25 Jill. I want to jump to probably one of your favorite topics because you are indeed, um, pediatrics doctor of infectious diseases. And I want to talk about COVID and kids. Um, so let's talk about first, you know, when it first came out, there was this whole, for some reason, it looked like kids just were not being touched much. Not that they never got it, we just didn't see a lot of it. Now. It just feels like it's I was kids. What happened,
Speaker 0 00:08:57 Man? A couple different things happened. Um, one is that the back, even when we thought it wasn't touching kids, there were, and kids in general didn't have a bad case of it. There was something called MIFC that came after COVID that a certain number of kids got a very small percentage, but still not insignificant who got a really bad inflammatory syndrome that even affected their hearts. And so, but then, like, I don't think people knew about that. People were like, it's not really a big deal what's happening now though, is that the Delta virus is so much more transmissible from person to person. And it's really spreading to the kids. The kids weren't really able to give it to adults that much, or didn't even pass it to each other that much in the beginning. But Delta is different. Plus Delta really does appear to hit kids a lot harder. Talk to colleagues in the south and the hospitals are just full of kids. And we're starting even here in Minnesota, we're have been a little bit behind what's going on in the south, but we're starting to see more severe cases than we've seen throughout the whole pandemic. So
Speaker 2 00:10:01 Are the symptoms in kids different than the symptoms in the adults?
Speaker 0 00:10:05 The symptoms are very similar, um, before they just had milder symptoms. Whereas now they're getting more severe symptoms, just like the adults where they're ending up in the hospital on ventilators, especially kids that have some other problems, kids that have other illnesses, like kids that have Down's syndrome or, you know, might need, uh, you know, to have a ventilator at home. Those kids are being especially hit by this.
Speaker 2 00:10:30 So as the contagion and kids different from the contagion and adults,
Speaker 0 00:10:36 No, it's probably that the kids caught up with the adults, whereas before the kids didn't seem to pass it, as well as adults know that the kids are running, even with the adults.
Speaker 2 00:10:47 I see. Okay. So right now, what, how common is it? It seems like a lot of kids are getting that now that they're getting it just as much as the adults do everyday.
Speaker 0 00:10:58 Yeah. I think, I think we're seeing that we saw that in the south and we're just starting to have our numbers go back up here in Minnesota. And that's what we're starting to see in Minnesota. I mean, there's fewer kids than adults. Um, but we're, yes, we're starting to see it a lot more in kids. And
Speaker 2 00:11:14 Now we've sent our children back to school.
Speaker 0 00:11:18 Yeah. I'm holding my breath on that one. Um, we had the state fair that a lot of people mixing with straight did not go back. No, neither did I, I was hoping to, I just moved here. Um, but I did not go. Um, so we had a lot of kids and, you know, and, and part of it, I think his kids, his kids just aren't as good about keeping their mass song, you know, distance, they don't this, this,
Speaker 2 00:11:42 And they're all over each other. Yeah, that's
Speaker 0 00:11:43 Right. Yep, yep. Yep, exactly. And they just, you know, they don't follow directions as well cause they're kids. And so, and then now they're back in school. And so, you know, one of the things that I really wanted to talk to parents about too, is getting masks for kids to make sure that they get a mask that fits their kid. Right. Um, that the masks are going to be so important yet. I, you know, sort of out in the, the grocery stores, they have seen a lot of kids with these great big adult sized masks on. So, so
Speaker 2 00:12:13 Since we're on that, I was actually going to ask you, but let's, let's hit it now because you saw me change from a heavier duty mask to lighter one, to be able to breathe and talk on the microphone. But generally I, I'm pretty heavy duty. Um, let's talk about masks and let's talk about, especially because it's hard to find masks with kids and I'll tell you, I've seen those cloth ones in the grocery store. I just don't feel good about them.
Speaker 0 00:12:41 Well, you know, I, most of the time we're a cloth mask. Um, but not when I'm at work, you know? So I think, you know, the heavy duty masks are, are certainly the best, but the heavy duty masks are also kind of hard if you wear them, right. They should be a total fit to your face. So you're not breathing around them at all. Right. So a lot of people wear the heavy duty ones, but then, because they're really uncomfortable, they make them really loose.
Speaker 2 00:13:07 That's not good. That's true.
Speaker 0 00:13:09 Kind of loses its impact. So, you know, you should wear a mask. That's the best mask that you think you can tolerate all day and still do your activities. Um, certainly if I fly in a plane though, which I try not to do, but if I'm traveling, I put a double mask on and when I'm at work, I put it out. So I put the surgical mask on and then he put a cloth mask on over it and then put it on nice and tight, but not so much, I'm feeling strangled.
Speaker 2 00:13:31 So what should we do for the kids?
Speaker 0 00:13:34 Same thing with kids is you can get mass for the smaller mass for the kids. You can order them on Amazon. Um, you can, you know, if you know, somebody that's a seamstress, that's always the best because you can talk them into making a mask for you and you can make it just for the perfect size for your kid. And then, you know, put elastic on it that, you know, adjusts as they, you know, get a little bit bigger, but the mask should, you know, tuck nicely into the chin and should fit firmly around the nose. It needs to have one of the, the metal piece around the nose and then go back to, you know, a little, a couple of inches in front of the ears. But I see them either flopping all over. I see them, they're wearing such a tiny masks that they're, they're hardly even covering their face. Right,
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Right. Yeah. My poor son, he he's at that teenage stage and I keep telling him, you have to change a mess every day. You have to change mess there. And you can see these little rash, splotches where the masks, you know, it's like, unfortunately that's just the oils and everything. But unlike that, I would think gets a little worse if you wear, if you repeat, wear without washing. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:14:39 Yeah. If you have a cloth mask, absolutely. You should wash it every night.
Speaker 2 00:14:43 Um, and so should they double mask?
Speaker 0 00:14:47 I think that if you are going to be in a place that has people that are unvaccinated, especially, or for me when I'm at the hospital where there's a lot of sick people, right. Um, you should double mask. I really think so. Put a surgical mask on under a cloth mask. Um, cause I think for a lot of women, especially the surgical masks, don't really, they're, they're big and there's a lot of airspaces around them, but the cloth mask over it makes it fit nicely.
Speaker 2 00:15:13 Moscow first, then the cloth or whatever you're doing, not about if you're doing like an N 95
Speaker 0 00:15:19 And 90 fives that are pretty good. You only need one basket then. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 All right. Um, so, all right, so let's jump to vaccines. This is a big deal, apparently everywhere. All right. First of all, I want to start out by right now. We've got, you know, do we generally have three? I don't hear a lot about AstraZeneca. There's poor technically, right. Others with little branches off of other countries, but I hear, um, Pfizer Moderna Johnson and Johnson and I guess technically, um, AstraZeneca is out there.
Speaker 0 00:16:02 Ashes Aneca is really in Europe. We don't have, we just really have the, um, Madonna Pfizer and J and J works, picking one called Novavax to be, um, approved probably pretty soon I would get
Speaker 2 00:16:16 So can you talk a little bit about, cause Madrona and Pfizer are pretty similar, I think. Right. So the difference between the, with those two and the J and J
Speaker 0 00:16:26 Okay. So the Moderna and Pfizer, you need to have them, um, they're a new technology that's called this messenger RNA.
Speaker 2 00:16:36 And what does that mean? So
Speaker 0 00:16:38 Messenger RNA is art is something that's in all of our cells. And it's the, it's kind of the code that, you know, if you're thinking about sort of like coding a computer program, it's the code that tells yourself what kind of products to make. So the cell, obviously isn't going to have, uh, a code in it already to make antibody unless you've already had COVID. And so what we're doing is we're injecting, um, uh, a little tiny droplet that you can't even see with a human eye, a little tiny droplet that has that code in it. The code gets taken up by yoursel and then you're still starts producing the antibody to the spike protein of, of COVID.
Speaker 2 00:17:19 And so then how does the J and J work? So the
Speaker 0 00:17:23 Jay is a little bit similar. It, it doesn't do it through messenger RNA, but what it uses is it uses a virus that's been inactivated and the virus then carries in a little piece of the, um, uh, very, uh, uh, piece that was created in the lab of the, that looks like, uh COVID then the body starts making antibodies to it. So the end result is, is very similar and, but the process is slightly different.
Speaker 2 00:17:51 Why is Dan Jay's only one and the other two are too
Speaker 0 00:17:56 The, the RNA virus one, it really takes two times to really build up enough of the antibody, the J and J one, because it's infecting the cell with the antigen, with the actual, the little, the piece of what looks like COVID, it just, the, the immune system is able to be smarter and make the antibody a lot quicker. The problem is, is that the Pfizer and the Moderna appear to be lasting a lot longer than the J and J the J and J works quicker, but it seems to be wearing off faster,
Speaker 2 00:18:32 So much for the one and done yeah.
Speaker 0 00:18:34 So much for the one and done.
Speaker 2 00:18:37 Yes. And I, I did notice even, even AF at the beginning, we're talking about it, the efficacy, meaning how well it covered you, I think was different between the different vaccines.
Speaker 0 00:18:51 Yeah. The 200, our eyes were in the mid nineties and the J and J was kind of the upper eighties and the low nineties, which, you know, at the time, maybe I remember the very back at the beginning of this, Dr. Fowchee was talking about, we'll be happy if we can get one to 70. So everybody was, you know, dancing around at this, you know, number that was in the nineties. Right,
Speaker 2 00:19:10 Right, right. So, um, let's jump for a minute to kids because it took quite a while. My I'm grateful now that my son was old enough to get the vaccine, we got him vaccinated as soon as we could, as soon as it came out, why did it take so long?
Speaker 0 00:19:31 Well, it's always, you do adults first. Cause if there's going to be, I mean, it's good that we know adults first because we want to make sure if there is something that pops up that we just don't expect that isn't found out in the trials, um, you want to do that on adults before we do it on our children. Um, so that's the first part and that, you know, we all feel very comfortable that there's, there's no problem there. The other thing is you have to figure out what dose to give the kids because kids are smaller. And so, but their immune systems are a little tricky. So because the kids half the size of an adult, you give half the dose or do they need the full dose. And that's why it's part of why it's taking so long.
Speaker 2 00:20:10 How did they decide that the cutoff was like 12?
Speaker 0 00:20:14 Well, that's kind of just traditionally what people have done is we do 12 to 12 to 18, and then we do six to 11 and then we just kind of like,
Speaker 2 00:20:24 Okay. And, but now it seems like that it's taken an, an unbelievable amount of time to get the ones under 12. Is there anything different with that besides the dosage?
Speaker 0 00:20:36 Yeah. It's just really figuring out the dosing and, and figuring out if there's going to be something in these kids that pops up the same way the kids have that, that MIFC syndrome that I talked about. You know, people are worried that, you know, maybe they're, you're going to get MIRC from the vaccine because it's, it's the recovery from the COVID that led to this. But so far nobody's seen that, but it's, everybody's being just extra careful because you don't want to give a vaccine to the kids to make things better and then actually make things worse. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:21:05 We talk about the vaccine, but you know, I guess when I got mine and this happened in my entire family, that either the first or second dose made us sick, you know, not obviously not sick, like somebody who had COVID, but you felt like crap for about a day and a half. And then you're like gone. It was fine. It was like, what does happen? So what was that?
Speaker 0 00:21:32 That was your immune system that was showing that your immune system was, was producing all the different antibodies. I mean, I think people don't realize that sometimes when they're sick, part of the reason that they feel so crummy is from the actual organism, by the virus or the bacteria, making them sick. And part of it is their immune system fighting the fight and just like soldiers fighting a fight. It, you know, it's, it, it takes a lot of weapons and, uh, exhaustion.
Speaker 2 00:22:00 And so what happened to the people that felt like absolutely nothing. Was there a thing there that said, oh, you should be careful because you had no response to the shot? No,
Speaker 0 00:22:12 They were probably, it was just everybody's immune systems are slightly different. Um, one thing we did find is some of the people that had the most severe reactions tended to be people that had had COVID already. So their immune system already had some memory. And, But you can't say that across the board. Some people like it's the same with a tetanus shot. Some people get a tetanus shot and they're like, oh my God, their arm is falling off. And other people's like, did I have a shot yesterday?
Speaker 2 00:22:39 All right. So what do you think is, I mean, I'm sure there's many things. I, when I heard that the FDA was going to approve things, you know, or that things were going to be approved, I just kind of shook my head because I knew that that people that said, you know, I'll wait till it's approved to get it. No, you won't, you won't get it. Why, what is that?
Speaker 0 00:23:08 You know, I, I think it's that there's something down deep inside, all of us that is, you know, like your lizard brain that is saying, don't let a stranger come stick you with a sharp object and inject something into. And so, you know, you, you, you, it's scary. And so, and, and COVID is scary. So you have to decide, which is more scary. And then you gotta use logic and you gotta use logic and you have to be trusting of the people that are making the vaccines and the people that are making the recommendations of the vaccines. And it's hard to have logic when you're scared.
Speaker 2 00:23:43 What is kind of unfathomable to me is that most of us got back scenes or got our shots when we're young, we were immunized. Yep. And certainly not every single person, but most of us. Yeah. But now there's still a problem. So I guess, um, I want to know, like, do you see this? It feels like we start getting better. And then somewhere because of whatever it is, you know, maybe it's that they can't afford the vaccine so that another country, so they're a lot more people are getting sick and something happens, a new strain pops up and then it comes up all over again. Do you ever see this going away?
Speaker 0 00:24:31 You know, I don't think it is going to go away. I think we had a chance for it to go away. Um, in the beginning everyone said, oh, it's, you know, it's not going to really move mutate. And it shown that it did. People said that it was, you know, I mean, people have done sort of the best they could with the information that they had in hand. And the biggest thing I've learned with this is to not try to make guesses about it, cause it always ends up fooling you. But I think it is going to change though. I think it is going to get to a place where it is kind of like the flu and it, it, you know, and like who really gets upset about, oh yeah, I gotta get my flu shot every year. And it's, I think it's just going to be calm. This thing that we have to manage. And, but, well, we're in a race because we need to get it to that manageable place before mutates much more, or the more it mutates, the more it is going to be hard to get it under control.
Speaker 2 00:25:22 Gotcha. We need to take just another short break and we'll be right back
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Speaker 2 00:25:57 And we're back. This is KVI 90.3, FM Minneapolis and kvi.org. This is disability and progress. I'm hearing. So Charlene and so is Dr. Jill foster from the U. Um, we're talking about, let's just say all things COVID, let's I'd like to jump to. Um, I'd like to talk a little bit about breakthroughs. Okay. Um, that's a really confusing word and I feel like it's been misused. I think mostly from the media, it feels like, can you explain exactly what a breakthrough is? So,
Speaker 0 00:26:36 Uh, breakthrough is defined as somebody who is at least two weeks out from their last shot who still gets COVID. Um, in the very beginning, um, back before Delta, um, we had very few, almost nobody had a breakthrough and now, and you're right. It is kind of a funny word and, and it makes it kind of sound like the, the vaccine has failed. Um, now we're in a place that I think two things have happened. One is that a lot of us are more than six months out from our last shot. Um, and the other thing has happened is Delta is such a powerful version of this virus that you need lots and lots of antibody to fight it. And so you need to have the antibody levels that you produced way, way, way up there in that 95% range, not down in the 70% range.
Speaker 2 00:27:33 So my understanding was that breakthrough was like something that it sent you to the hospital, not when you got COVID, but it was bad enough to send. And that really isn't true. Is it a breakthrough is a breakthrough, is a breakthrough. It was just if you get covered period. Yep, exactly. And you've had the shot, um, then that's a breakthrough. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:27:54 We do know that if you have one of those breakthrough infections, you're still much less likely to need to go to the hospital and to be put on a ventilator and to die than somebody who got the vaccine. So you got enough antibody to kind of, you know, beat the virus back a little bit, but you didn't have enough to keep you from getting it.
Speaker 2 00:28:15 I know that Delta is the most prevalent one now, but where did all the others go?
Speaker 0 00:28:25 Well, that's the thing is that, you know, it's sorta like a, uh, a plant in your garden that takes over, um, Delta took over and is so much, it becomes the dominant one that there's just, you know, no uninfected noses for the other ones to, uh, the plant, to its seeds. It,
Speaker 2 00:28:43 So when somebody gets the virus, if they go in or get tested, do they test the virus? You know, the strain?
Speaker 0 00:28:54 No. What happens is that the health department is testing a certain percentage of the infections and then using that to judge where we are, um, they're also especially testing the vaccine, um, the virus and people that have already had vaccine. So then we can just generalize that to everyone, but it's done at the health department. It's not something that would be done at the lab at your hospital. So,
Speaker 2 00:29:15 So if you're tested, you don't know which strain you had. No.
Speaker 0 00:29:20 Yeah. But 98% of the viruses and Minnesota right now are Delta. So you can be pretty sure you got to go Delta.
Speaker 2 00:29:27 So now I want to talk about, um, transmission, because there was a whole thing about if your back's needed it for a short time, I actually took my mask off of his beautiful and because I thought I'm vaccinated. I'm good. Right. I'm good. I, I, if I, if I know I'm around all vaccinated people, we are okay. But then there was the thing that came that maybe you could still transmit it, if you, if somebody was infected and you were around them. How talk about that?
Speaker 0 00:30:03 Yeah. I mean, me too. I, you know, I had my mask off in June. Um, CDC came out with recommendations saying, you know, if you've got grandchildren, you haven't seen take your mask off, go visit 'em. Um, those, those recommendations were homemade before we had Delta here. Um, and without Delta, we probably could've gotten away with it. As long as you only hung with people that were vaccinated. Unfortunately not everybody is truthful about being vaccinated. And I think we also overestimated how safe it was outside. Um,
Speaker 2 00:30:39 Okay. So what happens then? You can still transmit it if you have the vaccine,
Speaker 0 00:30:45 If you're symptomatic,
Speaker 2 00:30:46 If you are symptomatic. So if you have a breakthrough, you can transmit it. Yes. But if you are, but can't you be asymptomatic. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:30:55 Less likely, um, to be able to transmit it. It's not impossible. Um, and one of the tricky places that when somebody's just kind of coming down with a symptomatic, they can really transmit. So like say you five days ago got exposed to somebody and you're just starting to feel maybe a little achy, but you, you know, maybe you had a hard day, but the virus is in your system, you're going to transmit it. And then the next day you're coughing and have a fever and feel really lousy. And, but even when you're coming down with it, you can't transmit.
Speaker 2 00:31:29 So how common is it to, well, first of all, how common is it to be asymptomatic?
Speaker 0 00:31:39 I don't think we know before we said 40 to 50% before Delta. And I don't think we know now, but I'll just tell you from my experience, I'm seeing very few tests that are coming back positive and people who have no symptoms. I see they have a lot less symptoms, but I'm not seeing a lot. But then again, it could also be that just people would have symptoms. Aren't getting any tests. Right.
Speaker 2 00:32:02 That's what I think. Yeah. I
Speaker 0 00:32:04 Think, I think there's still a few of those people out there, but you know, most of the people that I'm hearing about are being pretty responsible. So most people are getting tested because someone calls them and says, Hey, you know, we had dinner two nights ago and it turned out. I had COVID didn't know I did. You need to go get tested. Right.
Speaker 2 00:32:23 Let's talk about pregnancy. And COVID okay. Because I think a lot of people are nervous about that. Um, I have seen, um, some kind of rough stuff in the news where mom goes in, has the baby she's in there for months, comes out, she's gets to hold her baby for the first time I've seen mom goes in, has the baby mom dies? Mom goes and has the baby mom baby die. So how talk about a little bit about how this is working, if somebody is pregnant and they do get covered, what should they do? Is there anything that they should proactively do?
Speaker 0 00:33:02 Oh, they should immediately call their doctor. Um, because there's all COVID and the pregnant woman is much more severe. Um, there's more risk for the woman, just to what you talked about. There's more risks that she could even have a miscarriage or that there could be a fetal death. I mean, it's, it's really not at all pretty, but she should call her doctor. She should, um, be extra careful, make sure that she has plenty of fluids. And if she's feeling, you know, like things are getting a little worse, you know, don't do the, I'll just go to bed and see how I feel in the morning, make sure she gets into medical care.
Speaker 2 00:33:39 So now let's jump to getting the vaccine. You have so much stuff going on out there. So many myths and everything. Um, I'm guessing you're going to see pregnant. Women need to definitely get their vaccines, even if they're pregnant. Yes,
Speaker 0 00:33:56 Absolutely. Um, good studies have shown, have looked at large numbers of women. Well, large considering where we are in the epidemic of women who were pregnant and got the vaccine and they did find they didn't have any more problems with the vaccine than anybody else did. Um, which is so much better than a pregnant woman who gets COVID.
Speaker 2 00:34:18 So let's talk a little bit about the mess. Where did they come from? I can't even be magnetic. And all of a sudden somebody told me, well, I've had my children. Thank goodness. And I said, well, what does that mean? She's like, you know, you get sterile when you get the I'm like, what? No, you don't, people wouldn't be getting pregnant then. So, so I guess I don't understand, first of all, people will believe whatever they're going to believe, but I, I, I want you to emphasize that people really need to seek out a, a, an ethical source of, you know, news and whatnot, uh, or about the vaccines when they're choosing to believe something. So how do they know, how do they sort out fact from fiction? Well,
Speaker 0 00:35:07 You know, some of this stuff just defies sense, right? So the vaccine produces antibody the same way that disease produces antibody. So if the disease produced antibody, so if antibody makes you sterile, then the people that got the disease would be sterile do. And so there's things like that. That just, I think if people sort of take down the heat and the temperature and think, does this make any sense? That's one way to help. The other part is to yet again, I talked to how people get scared and so you're scared. And so you want to find, you know, I'm scared of the vaccine. So I'm going to go look for, you know, what are the bad vaccine side effects when you Google? And of course, a whole bunch of things are going to come up from a bunch of crazy people that are there trying to sell you something. Or they, you know, they just want to be famous because they come out with something stupid like magnets or the pregnancy fertility issues. So, you know, go, if you really are going to be sincere about this, go to a site like the American academy of pediatrics, the American academy of family medicine, one of those places and, and, and look for something that's a reliable source. Right.
Speaker 2 00:36:13 Thank you. Um, so let's talk about now, the big news is boosters. So boosters, what is it? Exactly.
Speaker 0 00:36:23 All right. So that's something, uh, that's something that is just being, um, it's kind of in the news and we're trying to figure stuff out. And there's a big group at the FDA. That's in fact meeting tomorrow to look at all the data in a very sort of unemotional way. The way I'm looking at it is people should think back to when they there's a lot of vaccines that they got their children, or they, they got themselves that they got like at, you know, the beginning, like hepatitis shot, you get one in the beginning, you get another one in one month and then you need another one at six months to make it long lasting. And I think what we're finding is that this vaccine is going to be like the hepatitis vaccine that you just, you need three of them. So I think people need to not think that, oh, the vaccine failed and I need a third shot, but that maybe this is just a vaccine that needs three shots. Um, people are immunocompromised though. That's different. Those people are people that just did not make the good antibody because their immune system was not working the way it needed to. And so those folks are already getting a booster.
Speaker 2 00:37:28 How do you know if you made good antibody or not?
Speaker 0 00:37:31 Well, you can have your doctor check your antibody. Um, the problem, even if your antibody is, is at a good blood level that tells you something and, and what does that
Speaker 2 00:37:40 Mean? A good antibody would be what,
Speaker 0 00:37:42 Um, a number that I can pull right off the top of my head. But when you get the lab result, it'll say this number to this number is a good number. Okay. The problem is if your number is low, that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. Because if you think about, I think of all the vaccines you've had, think of all the illnesses you've had in your life, you can't be making an antibody to all those and all the time, or your blood would be so thick. It wouldn't be able to throw flow through your veins. So your immune system makes decisions about what things do I make antibody to and what things I might not. And so if you've not been exposed to anybody for, with COVID, since you first got your vaccine back, and I got mine back in December, then my body's going to be smart and not make a lot of antibody right now. Wow. Do you check your antibodies? No, I haven't. I was going to say you've been awhile. Yeah. I'm probably going to be in line for the healthcare workers. They get boosters, which is kind of what we're expecting.
Speaker 2 00:38:38 Is it, um, so what are they saying now? They're saying if you're compromised, certainly you should get a booster. Is it bad? If you get just nervous and you're saying I'm going to get a booster anyway, is there anything that can happen bad to?
Speaker 0 00:38:55 Nah, I ain't, you know, we haven't done it yet, so we don't know. Um, there's some clinical trials that are going on to try to study it, um, that the results aren't really back yet. Um, there's a lot of people that say they don't want to do it because there's lots of people in the country, you know, in other countries that don't have vaccine, but I, you know, right now I'm not particularly sold on it. Cause it's not like if I don't get a vaccine that they're going to take the vaccine that I did. Right.
Speaker 2 00:39:21 And send it to a place that's not going to happen. Um, yes, that is right. Um, I guess I would just wonder if it feels like it's so new, you know, that you're right. How do you completely know? I mean, I think the whole idea is they didn't know how long these shots would last because this is a new thing. So we kind of have to be at their mercy is the wrong word, but you know, they, we've got to just listen and, and trust that they're going to study the right things and, and give us good advice. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:39:58 I know some of the people that are on the FDA panel and who are on one of the people's lives right here in Minnesota and the people that are on the committee that makes the recommendation some CDC and good people. These are good, smart people. These aren't people that work for the drug companies or have an agenda other than just trying to keep people healthy.
Speaker 2 00:40:19 I would like to talk about COVID tests. Okay. Cause I think there's a lot that came out and actually, so my son had been vaccinated and we allowed him to go to camp this summer. Um, and he got sick and I was a little bit nervous. And so I said, okay, we need to get you tested right away. And so my dental office said, we test, in fact, we'll give them a blood test. And they did. And they said, oh, he has antibodies. He did he have the, did he have the vaccine? And I said, yes. Okay. And they come back and they said, he's negative. So then when I was checking on what these tests were, the blood test was not an appropriate COVID test. My understanding is,
Speaker 0 00:41:10 Yeah, that's not what I would have done.
Speaker 2 00:41:12 Um, but I didn't know. You know, I thought I was being really good and getting them the test. And I was horrified because I said, oh my God, I told the champ he was negative. And for all I know he had it and I didn't know that. And then all those kids went home and I was like, I was just, and then other kids came there. I was just really pretty horrifying and, and very surprised that my dentist office misled me. So can you talk about what the COVID tests are and the different kinds and how accurate,
Speaker 0 00:41:46 So that the test really depends on you get some, some sort of secretion from your nose or secretions that have been close to your nose and you know, your nose connects in the back of your mouth. So there's a swab of your nose. There's a swab deep in your nose. The ones they call it like a brain biopsy. And then there's the saliva task because a lot of what's in your mouth was in your nose and has sort of come down into your mouth. Nice. So those tests, the ones that you give and then they get sent away and then they get looked at in a lab. Those are really good tests. Now there's, those are probably going to 98, 99, close to 100% of the time are going to tell you, you can go to the bank on that result. The other test is an antigen tasks that you can get like at the drug store that is almost kind of looks like a pregnancy test. It's a little plastic thing that you swab your nose and then you stick into it. That one is okay. Um, it's if you have COVID, it's probably going to show it, but not all the time. Like we did a study looking at it with kids in our emergency room and found out only about 50% of the time. Was it? Right?
Speaker 2 00:42:56 So, and that's an antigen test.
Speaker 0 00:42:58 That's an antigen test. So
Speaker 2 00:43:00 I would, okay. So I
Speaker 0 00:43:03 Think that if you're in a place that you live, that it's easy to get one of the, the, the molecular tests, the ones that get sent away, those are definitely preferable because those, you really can feel that you have a lot of trust. And especially in Minnesota, this health department has made it so easy. I've had a test a couple of times and you just get down to the airport is one way and you park in the blue garage and parking is free. You run in, you spit into a tube in you, 10 minutes later, you're back out again and it's free.
Speaker 2 00:43:33 So why do they have the free one space so far though? Because if you want to find out now where you don't have transportation to be driving for a long way, you gotta pay. And those aren't real, those are not cheap. Yeah. So what is going through the minds of, well, they're open,
Speaker 0 00:43:51 Hang up some more tests sides so that most people, at least in the twin city should be fairly close. It's harder for the people that aren't in the twin cities, but there's a fair number of, of sites in the twin cities that are pretty close. Um, they were doing it at the convention center. I'm not sure whether that one is still open or not. And then there's some scattered throughout Minnesota, or you can just go to your doctor. And I think most CVS is if you, I mean, everybody lives in a CVS and most CVS is, are still doing the test
Speaker 2 00:44:22 And it's free. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:44:24 Okay. Just wear your mask while you're waiting in line. Right. Other people getting their desks. Right.
Speaker 2 00:44:29 Um, yes. I think that's a great idea. So if people want to look up like the different tests and accuracy and where they can get them and things like that, where could they go?
Speaker 0 00:44:42 The Minnesota health department has wonderful COVID resources on the website. So just all you have to do is Google, Minnesota health department and COVID and you get pages and pages of all sorts of really great resources on there. They also every day say how many cases we have there's information on breakthroughs or information on who got vaccinated by ages. I mean, it's, it's an incredibly good resource.
Speaker 2 00:45:08 Charlene is still with me. Maybe she's not with me. Maybe she dropped off.
Speaker 0 00:45:16 Oh,
Speaker 2 00:45:17 I thought you fell asleep there for a minute. How could you Jill so interesting. Is there anything that you'd like to ask that, um, that you want to know that you're just dying to know?
Speaker 4 00:45:29 Yes. Can people get their flu shots? Uh, is there any act on getting your flu shots along with the COVID vaccines?
Speaker 2 00:45:44 Jill, did you hear that? No, I didn't. Oh, oh, oh, you don't have headphones. Okay. Tell me again, is there any, um, if people are getting flu shots,
Speaker 4 00:45:54 The flu shot worked with the COVID.
Speaker 2 00:45:57 Oh, does the flu shot work with COVID?
Speaker 0 00:46:00 Yes. Yes they do. And it's the perfect way to just get both shots out of the way at the same time
Speaker 2 00:46:06 For the price of one that's right. And I, since they probably don't charge you for the COVID shots, um, it, it really is two for the price of one
Speaker 0 00:46:15 COVID shots are free. Right.
Speaker 2 00:46:18 Um, so yeah, I see that. Is there any thought of like rolling it into one, could they kill,
Speaker 0 00:46:27 I mean, people are very excited about these new MRA vaccines, cause it would not be hard to put two or three different vaccines. And one of the things that people are working on right now is a flu vaccine that you'd only have to get a refi for 10 years, rather than having to get a flu vaccine every year. And that you would be able to put a bunch of different things in one vaccine.
Speaker 2 00:46:49 But I thought the flu vaccine, the flu kind of changed from Yardi, or
Speaker 0 00:46:53 It does change the parts of it that we can immunize people for do change every year. But there are parts that are kind of part of the core virus that don't change every year. And so we've never been able to make a vaccine to that, but with the MRI RNA, we have a possibility of maybe being able to make a vaccine to that. We're part of the virus.
Speaker 2 00:47:12 That's interesting. Yeah. And in your work, do you do any, um, testing with kids and vaccines and whatnot?
Speaker 0 00:47:22 Yeah, we're doing one right now with, uh, the Madrona vaccine with children, um, from, uh, we just finished the group of six to 11 year olds and Wilson be doing the infants and the younger kids.
Speaker 2 00:47:34 If people want to get involved with doing testing, you know, how do they do that?
Speaker 0 00:47:41 They should look at there's something called for the modern of vaccine. At least there's something called kid Cove. K I D C O V E just Google that. And then you can get on, uh, you can register to right now, we have a pretty big waiting list of thousands of people because there's been such strong interest in it, but there might be a place where they could get it. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:48:01 Okay. Yeah. Well, that's good to see that there was interest because you know, sometimes it's a little, like you said, a little scary, so give me one more time, run down a places people can go to find out about, you know, the virus what's real, what's not, um, the vaccines and any information they want on it.
Speaker 0 00:48:24 So the CDC has very good resources and they have resources that are written at sort of the level for the general public and then resources that are written for people with a little bit more scientific knowledge. Both of them, there are incredible resources at the American academy of pediatrics about COVID and about the vaccine. And then there's the, my favorite side for vaccines is something called immunize. That org, I am M U N I Z e.org. They've been around forever and they just have nonpartisan, just it's a nonprofit that just talks about vaccines.
Speaker 2 00:49:00 All right. Great. Well, Jill, thank you so much for coming back on and I really appreciate all your information and um, I wish us all the best of luck with this thing and hope that someday we will be talking to each other without masks.
Speaker 0 00:49:20 That's right. And some day we'll talk to each other about something other than COVID. I'm always glad to talk about gov.
Speaker 2 00:49:25 That's true. That's so true. Thank you again.
Speaker 0 00:49:29 Oh, you're welcome. Glad to thank you for inviting me. You're welcome.
Speaker 2 00:50:45 Thank you, Joseph. This has been campaign Andy 0.3, FM Minneapolis and kvi.org. This is disability and progress. The views expressed on the show are not necessarily those of KPI or its burger directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene doll is my research team. We were speaking with Dr. Jill foster from the university of Minnesota. If you want to be on my email list, you can email
[email protected]. Thanks for listening. Good night.
