finally 2020 is coming to an end but is 2021 going to be any better i think so
but january is going to be a bad month so let's talk more people travel through u.s
airports this past sunday than any other day this pandemic about 1.3 million now at the
same time more americans were hospitalized this past week than any other week of the pandemic
this past week about 40 percent of all icu patients in the u.s had covid 19 and that's
according to data that was published by the u.s department of health and human services
that's up from 16 in late september up from 22 in late october and 35 in late november
more than 63 000 americans have already died so far in the month of december which is the worst
month of this entire pandemic and next month is only going to be worse three big reasons one
because of the holiday travel in indoor gatherings two because of the colder temperatures and three
that new coronavirus variant b117 that is more contagious and more transmissible
and it's now here in the united states as it's just been identified in a colorado man
so i think that january is going to be the worst month of this entire pandemic of course the way we
fight this is with distancing and masks and the more people that do this the better the numbers
are going to be and the more people who get the vaccine the higher the likelihood that we
can bring this pandemic to an end most experts believe that in order to reach herd immunity
we'll need about eighty percent of the population to get vaccinated most polls show that about sixty
percent of americans want the vaccine based on my youtube poll about ten thousand of you voted and
forty seven percent want the vaccine 37 don't want it and 16 are still undecided so this virus is not
going to be extinguished anytime soon especially if these numbers don't change the soonest i expect
this pandemic to be over with would be by next fall but people need to get vaccinated in order
for this to happen now i'm glad that i was able to get my pfizer vaccine back on december 15th
other than a little bit of soreness in the first 24 hours or so i didn't have any side effects
so i feel great and i'm going to get my second shot about a week from now now with that second
shot the booster shot the chances of developing side effects are slightly higher compared to the
first shot so we'll see what happens and i'll keep you posted now one concern with these vaccines
is the potential for allergic reactions reactions to vaccines in general are very rare the american
college of allergy asthma and immunology has updated its advice regarding risks of allergic
reactions to these new mrna coveted vaccines they say that anyone with a severe allergic reaction to
the first shot should not get the second shot and that people with allergies to medications
foods insects in latex are no more likely than the general public to be allergic to these vaccines
it's still not clear whether having had an allergic reaction to an older type of vaccine
does that mean that people will react badly to these new mrna vaccines still an unknown at
this point what is or what should be said is that for people who've had previous allergic reactions
to a specific component of the new vaccine such as propylene glycol or lipid nanoparticles they
should hold off on getting the vaccine regardless these people should be discussing the risks and
benefits of getting the vaccine with their own health care provider ideally an allergist so these
are the latest recommendations at the time of the making of this video and of course they're subject
to change so with the new sarsko v2 mutation this new variant scientific experts are saying
that it's more contagious more transmissible does that mean that the vaccine will be less effective
this is still an unknown at this point in if the vaccine is less effective against this new variant
how much so again an unknown most scientific experts think that the vaccine will remain
effective against it but only time will tell also if it does mean less effectiveness against
this new variant the good news is that with these mrna vaccines they can be easily tweaked
and modified in order to accommodate that new strain of the coronavirus a lot of people are
also talking about the parasitic drug ivermectin is it useful against covid it's too early to tell
there are some weak studies that show it might help against covid but there's nothing conclusive
so far we need a large randomized control trial to know if it works or not and that hasn't happened
yet what did just come out though from brazil is a randomized control trial for giving vitamin d
to patients with severe covid we know that low levels of vitamin d are linked with higher risk
for having severe covid but when vitamin d was given to critically ill covid 19 patients who had
lower vitamin d levels it did not shorten their length of stay in the hospital or decrease their
mortality granted it wasn't the largest study there was a total of 240 hospitalized patients
in this study so they gave half of those patients vitamin d and then they gave the other half a
placebo so not the largest study but it still was significant but unfortunately based on the study
there's no benefit of giving vitamin d to critically ill patients who have covid 19.
the way that i look at it it's important not to be vitamin d deficient in the first place
as getting a large dose of vitamin d when you're critically ill is not going to save you so i'm
going to end on that note it's also my last video of 2020. happy new year to you and cheers to 2021