COVID news (good for a change)

This could be big, although the findings are preliminary. The study is not peer-reviewed yet, but Mayo decided to release it now because, as they point out, it can't possibly HURT to encourage people to get the vaccinations they should be getting anyway. 

Non-COVID vaccines offer some COVID protection, Mayo Clinic reports

More complete story here, but possibly behind a pay wall.

There are two really interesting takeaways here.

• This could be part of the answer to the puzzle of why young children have proved much less likely to get infected with this coronavirus: all those childhood vaccinations.  
• But it's not just children. In fact, the correlation was apparently noticed first in ADULTS. Most astonishingly, a 43% reduction in risk for adults who got a polio booster before traveling abroad. At least, I presume they are talking about adults, since children still get polio vaccinations routinely in the US so they wouldn't need additional protection before traveling abroad.

My personal takeaway?  I guess I'll not only get a flu shot this year, I might consider the pneumonia shot too. I don't think adults need MMR boosters, but I should check on my TDAP status as well. This kind of balances out my skittishness about even walking NEAR a medical facility at this point in time. I've been putting off getting routine lab testing for my two prescription meds because I feel more threatened by the idea of entering a clinic than by the remote possibility that my blood pressure medication has suddenly thrown my blood chemistry out of whack after working fine for years. But if I can get a potentially protective vaccine at the same time... might be worth it.