Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 4

My husband got a Pfizer booster shot on Friday night. He stayed in bed all Saturday and said that, while it definitely took the wind out of his sails, this time around wasn't as bad as his second shot. On Sunday he was feeling better for a bit but then got very severe intermittent stomach/intestinal cramps. He took off work today as a result, and, thankfully, now says he's back to 100%.

A quick internet search shows that stomach issues aren't a terribly uncommon side effect of the shot, but this was the first we'd heard of anything like that.

I just wanted to vent for a bit here about our current situation here in the west Atlanta exurbs. My 10 year old daughter and 2 year old son have both been exhibiting some symptoms of COVID. Nothing serious, fevers, lethargy, congestion, coughing, etc. We took them both to the doctor yesterday and they wouldn't perform a COVID test on either of them. It's all so strange. I get that they're low risk, but it would sure be nice to know if they have it and if we need to shut everything down for a bit around the house. We're just acting on that assumption for the most part.

I went online as well to see if I can get a test a pharmacy and there are no appointments for days and days. The only real option that's readily available is a cash pay urgent care that charges $130 per test. It's all very frustrating here. I just wanted to vent.

New Zealand phasing out COVID-19 elimination strategy

Brazil's tragic ivermectin frenzy is a warning to the US, experts say

Many Brazilians used to spend about $30 a head on what they called the "kit COVID."

It was a mix of vitamins and other pills that President Jair Bolsonaro touted as early treatments for COVID-19, well before vaccines became widely available to prevent and minimize coronavirus infections.

Among the "kit" drugs were the malaria pill hydroxychloroquine and the antiparasitic tablet ivermectin.

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The ivermectin strategy was once so popular in Brazil that entire towns tried it out. (Ivermectin is cheap and available in pharmacies across the country.)

In July 2020, ivermectin was available for free to all residents of Itajaí, to the tune of about $826,000 in government spending. The mayor of Itajaí, the physician Volnei Morastoni, said at that time that ivermectin was but "one more weapon in our war against the coronavirus."

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As infection rates soared, some people were taking excessively high doses of the medicine every day, hoping to stave off COVID-19, but in a few rare cases that move prompted liver failure.

Other patients were unknowingly given the "kit" drugs by doctors in private hospitals instead of more standard treatments — and some of them died.

Ivermectin "prescription practices didn't upend the tragedy of COVID here in Brazil in terms of preventing infections, preventing hospitalizations, and then preventing deaths," said Dr. Kevan Akrami, an infectious-disease and critical-care physician working in the northeastern city of Salvador. "Whether somebody was taking it or not didn't seem to have any impact on whether or not they got hospitalized or ended up dying from their COVID infection."

Desperation, misinformation: how the ivermectin craze spread across the world

With vaccines still in development, desperate physicians soon began administering ivermectin to patients and, despite a lack of evidence of the drug’s effectiveness in treating Covid, Peru’s government included it in treatment guidelines in early May 2020. A frenzy ensued.

“We ran out of ivermectin in all the pharmacies,” recalled Dr Patricia Garcia, the country’s former health minister. “Then there was a black market, and that’s when things got even worse because the veterinary ivermectin use started.”

Like several other Latin American countries, Peru in 2020 experienced a dire Covid emergency that overwhelmed its underfunded healthcare system. Many residents turned to self-medicating with ivermectin, Garcia said. Local politicians and television hosts told audiences to take the drug. Some Peruvians began taking ivermectin that was formulated for livestock and administered through injections, and images of people with necrotic tissue on their skin from shots made their way to Garcia’s desk. Evangelical groups touted ivermectin as equivalent to a vaccine, sending volunteers to inject thousands of people in indigenous communities while referring to the drug as a “salvation”.

I got my high risk booster this morning - haven't noticed any symptoms yet aside from a sore arm (which might just be bruising since they hit a vein).

Feeling pretty positive about it. Still nerve wracking being indoors with the occasional unmasked person, but hopefully my mask was sufficient. I expected to get quizzed on why I qualified since my partner was last week, but I guess the upside to mobility aids is that they make invisible disabilities more visible, haha.

Anyone else got their booster?

FDA authorizes COVID-19 home test from ACON Laboratories, potentially doubling the nation's supply

The FDA's emergency use authorization of ACON Laboratories' Flowflex COVID-19 home test allows the San Diego-based company to sell its non-prescription test at retail stores as the nation's demand for quick, inexpensive tests soars.

"As a result of this authorization, we will now have tens of millions of additional tests available in the U.S. marketplace very soon," said Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health told USA TODAY.

ACON expects to make 100 million tests per month by the end of this year. Production could double to 200 million monthly tests by February, according to the FDA.

Thousands of Vietnamese Flee Industrial Areas After Virus Restrictions Ease

Tens of thousands of workers have already left the nation’s commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City and nearby provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An, the government said on its website. As many as 2.1 million workers in the industrial belt want to return to their home provinces, the government reported, citing data from the public security ministry.

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Workers are fixated on the pandemic right now and believe they are safer with family in rural provinces, where they can also find work at factories, the news website Zing reported, citing Chu Tien Dung, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Businesses Association.

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The Southeast Asian nation has for years been the second-largest supplier of clothes and shoes to the U.S., according to the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which represents more than 1,000 brands.

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Vietnam’s pandemic response has been upended by the delta variant and one of the lowest vaccination rates in the region. Officials have arranged hundreds of buses to transport workers back to rural regions, the government said. Returning workers who are not vaccinated are sent to quarantine centers.