[Leica] All shot up

[Howard L Ritter Jr]

Thanks, Brian. That’s fascinating, in a macabre and ironic way. I’m sorry you had to be the central actors in this remarkable occurrence. It does seem clear that you both were exposed on your pharmacy visit. I’m glad to read how well you’re doing. My wife and I completed our doses two weeks ago today without drama (except for spending 4.5h in the drive-thru queue for the second dose).

This anecdote is worth communicating to the other members of the COVID-19 for Physicians group for their edification. If you’ll permit, I’ll post it verbatim without any identifying information, except for referring to you both as being of an age to qualify for vaccination. I’ll be happy to share with you any constructive comments that it might give rise to. I suspect that at least some commenters will feel that the pen was probably not the culprit, as fomites seem to be far less important in SARS-CoV-2 transmission than the airborne route. OTOH, if mutual masking is 90% effective in preventing airborne transmission, there was less than a 1% chance that both of you behind masks would have gotten infected from a common source, so who knows? 

What have you been advised about receiving a second dose? I can put that question to the group as well.

—howard

> On Feb 26, 2021, at 11:28 AM, Brian Reid <reid at mejac.carlsbad.ca.us> wrote:
> 
> We had been isolated for many weeks, not leaving the house nor having any visitors to the house. Grocery deliveries were left on the front porch; I never saw any of the delivery people.
> 
> We arranged to get the first dose of vaccine at a pharmacy on February 4. That was the first time out of the house for either of us during 2021. We drove to the pharmacy, filled out the paperwork, received our shots of Moderna, and waited the required half hour afterwards. We walked out of the pharmacy and drove home. By the morning of February 11 we realized that the very unpleasant symptoms we were experiencing were not side effects but were some disease. On February 15 I arranged a drive-through swab test, and it was positive. My wife got her test the next day, also positive.
> 
> We were very careful in the pharmacy, but obviously not careful enough. My current belief is that the pens the pharmacist handed us to sign the forms were contaminated, and that somehow during the 30-second interval between handling the pen and sanitizing our hands, we both managed to snag some virus on some part of our bodies.
> 
> There was no possibility of us having been exposed anywhere else, because we had had no other contact with people or with items recently handled by other people. And it hit us both at the same time. The county contact tracer said that she has seen a lot of this phenomenon, and commented "vaccination centers are becoming superspreader centers".
> 
> We did leave the house again on February 17 to receive the antibody infusions, but since at that time we were known to be positive, the medical staff took tremendous precautions escorting us from the car to the infusion rooms and then back to the car afterwards.
> 
> 
> On 2021-02-26 8:07 am, Howard L Ritter Jr via LUG wrote:
>> Brian,
>> Best wishes to both of you. I’ve since read that you were both treated
>> with the monoclonal antibody drug, fortunately, and are recovering.
>> As a physician, and co-moderator of the Facebook group COVID-19 for
>> Physicians, I’m curious. Could you elaborate on what you mean by
>> “during the administration” of your vaccines? What was the timeline,
>> and do you have any inkling of how you two became exposed
>> simultaneously?
>> Of course, I understand if you don’t want to share any further information.
>> —howard
> 
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