outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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

my scientific results, the morning after: aches in both arms, plus various other parts of my body. I took a couple of tylenol, we'll see how that goes. My son had some aches yesterday evening but seemed fine by the end of the night.

I have the most minor of sore arms, basically the spot where the Walgreens employee jabbed me. I slept fine.

My daughter spiked a slight fever, but that's her typical response to the flu shot.

A friend just told me she got her omicron booster a day before testing positive. I had to reassure that the infection won't "cancel out" the booster.

the uk advice was to leave it a month after an infection to get a jab

I mean, she didn't know she had it when she got the booster.

I may have posted this before, but 'long flu' is more common than 'long COVID', it's just that no one really noticed/cared before: https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/view/it-s-not-just-covid-there-s-also-long-flu-and-pneumonia

I cared because one of my friends had really fucked up temperature regulation and some other issues for yeeeears

Paradoxically, I think she got the flu again and when she recovered her problems had mostly gone away. The human immune system is such a weird, malfunctioning thing and it's not good at resetting back to zero after infection.

i've gotten knocked out for about two days minimum after every booster with exhaustion, brain fog and body aches.
last jab was in December so i'll certainly get this next week as soon as i have a recovery runway weekend.
have never had any reaction whatsoever to prior vaccines for flu.
i'll manage and figure it's worth the trade off for peace of mind but it would be nice if they could eventually get around to addressing side effects.

My mother is now boosted

Posting to block any "I gave ur mom a booster" jokes

lol

I've had absolutely no problem scheduling any of my previous vaccinations or boosters, but this latest one is giving me the biggest headaches. Walgreens keeps showing absolutely no availability around me for the next month. I can almost schedule one through CVS, but every time I try to finalize it, it refuses to let me finalize without entering an RxBin number for my insurance info. My insurance card doesn't have that number. I've spent two hours on hold with my insurance company trying to get said number, but I'm about ready to pitch my computer through a window.

does your insurance have any web chat feature on their website by chance? mega lame that they make it so hard to get.

I'll look for that next, I never had to jump through this many hoops with my previous appointments.

I even tried clicking that I don't have insurance, just to try to at least secure an appointment for now, but then CVS wanted me to click this affirmation that I am uninsured.... which, it's not true.

I'm assuming the Walgreen's thing is a glitch, I'll try again tomorrow. It seems highly unlikely that there is literally zero appointments available in the next month within 25 miles of Chicago.

I just did a search for Walgreens around 60657 and there are at least 10 Walgreens that have open appointments in the city. So probably a glitch. Took awhile for it to come up too.

Yeah, each time it took forever before popping up with the zero results.

I didn't have any issues when I scheduled late last week, jon (in fact sitting in what I suspect may be our shared Walgreens atm waiting to be boosted). And there were plenty of appointments available at the time, so I would bet on a glitch.

Yeah, I finally got one for late next week. That CVS experience was much more difficult than it needed to be, wish they had an option to just secure the appointment and take care of the insurance stuff when you get there. Can't help but wonder how many other people gave up in frustration.

Interestingly enough, my wife just went to her scheduled booster appointment at our nearby CVS but was turned away, they are out of boosters and "have not been given a timeframe on when to expect more, unlikely to be within the next month".

I'm hoping the frazzled pharmacist she was speaking to was either full of shit or misinformed, but that's not a great sign. A quick search of Twitter turned up a few folks in the past few days also turned away from scheduled appointments at CVS, but not enough to signal a larger supply chain issue. Disconcerting, to say the least though.

Forgot to mention they told her they had neither Moderna nor Pfizer boosters.

lol how do you always run into these things

I just checked and there are dozens of appointments at Chicago Ave. starting Tuesday, jon. They may have just opened up?

So far so good on the new booster! Although I've pre-warned the folks at work that I might opt for working from bed tomorrow.

Forty-eight hours I can report I suffered no side effects at all other than a very localized sore spot.

Like I said upthread, I have my appointment scheduled for next week after all the headaches today. I'm just still a little in shock that my wife got turned away from her already scheduled appointment.

Got mine yesterday after work (Pfizer bivalent), felt like crap all day today. Low-grade fever and body aches, sore arm. Same thing happened when I got my second shot of the initial vaccine, effects lasted about 36 hours then gone. Guessing I'll be fine tomorrow morning.

I had the same thing happen to me w my last booster at Walgreens earlier this year. I showed up, got told they were out, and they said they called everyone to tell them (lies).

My nostrils flared and I said "no you didn't, I have my call log here" and walked out

These companies are run by rich assholes who don't mind their underpaid pharmacists having to field angry reactions to things their executive asses caused

hey!

my family runs those companies. and i won't have their good name sullied

our company runs on dunkin'. dunkin' underpaid pharmicists into molten lava, ha!

*flying executive chestbumps*

Niche post, but would recommend the Walgreens on Oakton in Skokie, followed by chicken half a block away at The Port of Peri Peri.

Walgreens has been a total clusterfuck here lately, but that's where I got my booster last Friday. I had been in there on Wednesday and someone who had showed up for their vaccine was having to give all their details despite having registered because the vaccine registration system was down and the store couldn't see any of the details.

My guess is that when it goes down, it's down for everyone. Sounds like jon was trying to check during another crash.

I also went to walgreens, there were tons of open appointments, pretty much any time I wanted, which was a big contrast to previous vax drops. I'm on team system issues is what I'm saying.

Yeah I'm definitely seeing more availability than yesterday, but less than I'd expect. Anyway, it was just disconcerting to have issues scheduling on the same day my wife got turned away from hers. Fingers crossed for next week!