outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

xpost thx! Got an actual fully negative test this morning, so I am cleared to rejoin society. If I want to ...

huzzah

tips, it sounds like you completed the textbook 10-day cycle.

My office has something like 150 people and there are usually less than 5 people masked.

I am currently negotiating an ADA accommodation request where I would work from home until we get back to test positivity 5% (or alternately, average daily cases per 100,000 5 or less). I don’t know if they’re going to approve it. I’m in my fifties and I’ve got conditions.

I was working from home on a don’t ask don’t tell basis (agreed to by my manager) for the last several weeks since the numbers escalated, but someone blew us up.

Ugh sorry to hear that, good luck with the request.

kid started kindergarten yesterday. Something like 1 out of 10 kids wearing a mask. She's never had it. My wife and I have never had it. A friend of mine just told me he's taking a year off work because his long covid symptoms are so bad. Getting booster 2 on sunday.

Got Bivalent booster and flu shot yesterday! (Yay!)

Found out shortly after that someone I spent hours with on Tuesday tested positive yesterday (Ugh!)

So of course now I have side effects from the vaccines and I have to figure out if it's that or actual VID!

Idk if it's inevitable that I get it. I had an exposure much later than that (day before positive test) and nobody got it.

But boy will I be mad if I got that close to avoiding it!

So far neg

My immediate coworker and I are, I believe, the only people still consistently masking up in the office. I'm the undergraduate liaison for the department, supporting (counts) at least 750 students as of the new academic year, and she works the graduate side (we're severely understaffed because our programs just exploded in popularity over the past year). If one or - god forbid - both of us get sick and are out of commission for basically any time at all, the department is sooooo fuuuuuucked.

But I can't imagine why that would ever happen. COVID? Pssh. gwb-missionaccomplished.jpg

For Alfred and others involved in academe— I am teaching two in-person seminars this semester, and I have found it near-impossible to keep a KN95 mask on for *3 hours* while doing a lot of talking. My voice becomes more hoarse and nobody can hear what the fuck I'm saying. Any suggestions?

xp - hope you stay neg, Neanderthal

pharmacist just told my wife NOT to get booster and flu shot at the same time. I did with the last booster and was planning on doing it again. Not sure why.

xp I have been wearing a KN95 for 2.5 hour sessions. Every once in a while I step away/aside as much as possible and pull the mask away for a couple of breaths, drinks of water, etc. My student group is small (12–15) so I don't have to speak very loud and I feel safer taking the mask off for a bit because there aren't that many others around. Prior to the erasure of my school's mask mandate I wore surgical masks instead of KNs, that was a lot better and I barely noticed it after a while.

xpost only reason I can think of is that some experts say it's too early to get a flu shot now, but there's nothing harmful about doing both at the same time afaik

well they can both make you feel pretty rough for a day. might as well avoid the potential double whammy. or i guess you just need to ask yourself… “do i feel lucky?” well? do ya??

a couple i'm friends with did both on the same day and it really kicked their ass. anecdotal, but enough to make me not want to take that route.

weirdly this is the mildest response to any COVID vaccine I ever had, though this time I had Pfizer booster and previously had Moderna.

I mean, I don't feel GREAT, but i haven't felt the need to take NSAIDs, and normally I'm ODing on the things.

but ymmv and all immune responses vary, so I can get not wanting to do both.

xpost - Just read an article this morning about the doubling up and the doctor interviewed just said that they wouldn't recommend a flu shot just yet, it's too early, so they would just stick with the COVID jab now and get the flu shot later. No health concerns about doubling up where mentioned though.

How is it too early for a flu shot, when the flu shot is based on what is already circulating elsewhere? Is the idea that the flu shot's effectiveness might wane before the strain reaches here? Anyway, I got both shots, which means one in each shoulder, which means two sore shoulders. I've never had any side effect from the flu shot, so I imagine my overnight aches was a response to the Covid booster, just as it has been in the past.

We are swimming in vax appointments here, because I suspect a combination of so-called covid fatigue and also poor/miscommunication is at work. For example, if there is no clear agreement as to how early you should get your flu shot (why offer it now if it is too early?), or whether you should get it at the same time as you booster, then that means people will put off the flu shot, and any delay always means a certain number of people will just not get it. Anecdotally, I sense much less of a rush among people I know to get the latest booster, too, because its benefits (for those already vaxxed and boosted, or twice-boosted) have not entirely been clarified, imo. Or at least its benefit seems less urgent, fwiw.

Last week we went to the first in-school open house in two years at the high school, so hundreds of parents spilling through the halls. We wore a mask at first, but we were really in a tiny minority. After about 20 minutes I took mine off, figuring 1) some of these parents I have literally not seen in person for years and I wanted to say hi and 2) my daughter spends every day, all day, in there with no mask, among her maskless peers, who are all but guaranteed to be (even) less cautious than adults, and if she and her friends have not been getting sick after weeks of commingling for hours inside, I felt a little less worried about my own chances of getting sick in there. Not that I can't or won't get sick, just that based on the experiences of me and my friends, my chances of getting sick don't appear much worse in one situation vs. another.

For example, my other daughter took a bus from Madison, WI, to Bloomington, IN last weekend. First leg, an overnight bus full of people heading to the airport (travelers). The second leg, hours spent on a bus apparently full of Amish (so probably unvaxxed and definitely not showered). Then she spent the weekend with friends at another big school full of returning students before repeating the trip backwards. She wore a mask on the bus, but there's no way she didn't spend at least some amount of time maskless among the cootied. All seemed like an invitation to get sick, but she was OK. Her booster was in December 2021.

idk I got both a bivalent covid shot and a flu shot an hour ago

let's goooooo

For Alfred and others involved in academe— I am teaching two in-person seminars this semester, and I have found it near-impossible to keep a KN95 mask on for *3 hours* while doing a lot of talking. My voice becomes more hoarse and nobody can hear what the fuck I'm saying. Any suggestions?

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table),

My film and rhetoric courses, both almost three hours, have different demands. While the film course allows me breaks when I show clips or full films, I'm non-stop for the rhetoric class. I don't have problems breathing with KN95s. This will sound facetious, and I don't intend it that way, believe me, but facial structure -- muscles, bones, whatever -- may play a role. I haven't had a problem since July 2021.

When a student asks a question, I'll take advantage and remove my mask for a sip of water.

I'm signed up for both covid and flu shots on Monday, maybe I'll ask if there's any issue with that when I go

From the CDC site:

A recent CDC study published in JAMA suggests people who received a flu vaccine and an mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccine at the same time were slightly more likely (8% to 11%) to report systemic reactions including fatigue, headache, and muscle ache than people who only received a COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine, but these reactions were mostly mild and resolved quickly.

Regardless, they recommend getting the flu shot in September or October, with the end of October being ideal.

maybe I'll vaxmaxx and get a second flu shot

interesting. I generally don't have much reaction to vaccines, flu or otherwise, and got my last booster at the same time as a flu vaccine and was fine, guess I'll see what they say at my appt.

I'm wondering if my reaction will be any different now that I've had a case of covid approximately three months ago. Probably not.

might get a Negroni and my bivalent booster together idk

I'm going to hook myself up to a negroni drip tonight.

i just scheduled my flu/booster combo next week while sitting on my balcony drinking a negroni

oh sure NOW I check the thread after returning from the errand driving past the bar with the nice negronis

So far never had Covid and absolutely no reason I couldn’t work from home in perpetuity except guess whose boss has decided “it’s time” people all come back to the office.

No COVID either despite exposure to grotty college students for fourteen months.

Hey, ya'll, any booster side effects?

I just got through 24 hours of post-booster flu-like, yeah.

Booster on Wednesday (no flu shot), took a solid nap a few hours after and otherwise fine. (Was groggy but fine after previous shots.)

Down to "low" transmission rate in my corner of Cook County. Can't remember the last time that happened.

I'm currently 15 hours out from my booster, with no discernible side effects except for a sore arm. I figured that pain would linger, since this particular shot was more painful than the others. Maybe a lesser experienced shot-giver? I didn't tack on the flu shot.

I think it's mostly just luck, where it hits in the muscle/fat. I've had shots I didn't feel, shots that hurt a little, shots that ached and shots that didn't. The flu shot is iirc a much smaller needle than the covid shot, but at the same time, one year I got the flu shot and she accidentally (again, just bad luck) hit a blood vessel in my shoulder that sent a squirt of blood out, which was very dramatic/funny. But all these folks giving shots give soooooo many of them that I assume they are all equally experienced, as much as it matters. In fact, I wonder if the *more* experienced shot givers might be *more* likely to take less care, since they've been doing it for so long it becomes automatic? For sure bedside manner probably varies more than actual skill.

Do any of you have a preferred shoulder? I always go left, because I am right handed. But working at a vaccine clinic over the summer I came across a right handed kid who had a baseball game that night that chose to get the shot in his dominant arm, figuring he used it more often and would quickly wiggle out the soreness (or whatever moving your arm around after a shot is meant to do).

I've been going right shoulder because I sleep on my left.

As a fairly thin person I don't feel like I have much in the way of fat OR muscle in my shoulder area, but I guess I do. Whenever the shot-giver says something like "Ok, let's find some good muscle to stick this in" I always respond with "good luck with that! If you find anything, I'll split it 50/50 with you." No, they never laugh.

I went with the same strategy as Alfred, after getting it in my left the last time and regretting it

No COVID either despite exposure to grotty college students for fourteen months.

Hey, ya'll, any booster side effects?

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, September 10, 2022 7:56 AM bookmarkflaglink

barely any for me. they're already gone. whereas Moderna boosters in past put me down for 2 days. guess getting Pfizer made it easier.

I get my tattoo in my left shoulder because that's where my Baphomet tattoo is and they always have to stab me in the middle of the satanic goat

No COVID either despite exposure to grotty college students for fourteen months.

Me either (as always, me either as far as I know) despite a whole summer of travel, a great deal of indoor eating, etc.

still testing negative on PCR after my most recent exposure, no symptoms. too soon to say "out of woods" and will keep doing, but would be nice if I was truly, because then I can finally breathe a lil with this bivalent boost.

my son and I just got nu-boosters and flu shots. I went for one shot in each arm, for science.

still negative, no symptoms, 5+ days and 4 tests later (PCR mostly), AND the friend who tested positive weirdly is already testing negative after only 4 days. will try another test or to confirm but may have wriggled out of this one again (and now bivalent take me home!)

xpost Moodles, lmk how your side effects are. mine were weirdly mild, compared with my last boost.

Quintuple vaxxed!

Gonna make my appointment today I think

This thread here is frustrating:

Is your intention to persuade younger people to not get it? I don’t know how an oped like this is helpful to public health when we might have a chance to reduce transmission with a targeted booster

— Katrine Wallace, PhD (@DrKatEpi) September 9, 2022

Not because I expect epidemiologists to always agree, especially with a novel virus we still struggle to understand, but Gounder and her here really seems to be intentionally sewing distrust in the bivalent while pretending they're just reframing expectations, which it doesn't seem like is their true goal.

I realize not having human trials concluded prior to its release isn't great, but as this epi states, the touted benefits of MRNA technology were the ease of updating the formula. I don't think the expectation was ever necessarily a new series of three phase trials for each slight retooling.

Not to mention, the ancestral strain version of the vaccine managed to kneecap Alpha, which was fairly far away from Wuhan strain, and effectiveness only started to fade the further the variants got from Wuhan. Getting the formula closer to the current strain really wouldn't help that much?

Idk. I'm not losing sleep over it, I got mine, I think everyone should get theirs. Just know this will be weaponised not towards anti-vaxxers, but vaccine-fatigued people who are persuaded to maybe skip this one