outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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!

Weird, CVS was in and out. My shot the same day I scheduled, my daughter I got a couple of days later. Where I live (Oak Park), they're offering several clinics a month with the appropriate vaccine for anyone 6 months and up.

I got my shot at Walgreens on Monday. Dozens of appointments available through the week. I was the only person getting jabbed.

Got my shot at Walgreens yesterday afternoon, went fairly smoothly, feel like absolute garbage today.

how many of you had gotten the second booster earlier this year?

not me, this was my second booster

fourth booster here. the challenges of getting stabbed in 2020.

Not me. This was my number four, my first in almost 12 months.

Boosted yesterday afternoon at a Duane reade in Manhattan. So far, only moderately messed up. Kinda stoned? Wife sporting mild 99.4 temp.

This is our second booster.

Got my bivalent booster earlier this week at Walgreens, this is my fifth shot over all, third booster. Slightly sore arm, no other effects.

Seems like those who got the second booster earlier this year felt fewer to no symptoms.

this was my first booster after which I felt nothing but a mildly sore shoulder

i thought maybe it was cos I got Pfizer, but my mother, who was utterly slaughtered by her first few boosters, got Moderna and said she had much milder symptoms.

now just dad left!

The other day I had to make conversation with an older lady who was having health problems but otherwise seemed perfectly lucid (this is what's known as "foreshadowing"). She told me how she was in the hospital recently where she uncovered a plot to harvest people's gall bladders so that new doctors could get surgical experience (because it was a "teaching hospital") (because a nurse told her that gall bladder-ectomy is supposedly "the easiest" surgery to learn to do?).

They also insisted she had COVID even though she knew she didn't. How, you might ask, did she know that? Because she takes zinc. Duh. Obviously. Zinc makes your body as inhospitable to viruses as the SURFACE OF MARS IS TO HUMAN LIFE. So what she had was definitely a cold (NB also...a virus?) but definitely couldn't have been COVID.

This went on for a while.

I've bailed early on taxi rides to avoid conversations like that with the driver.

As I guessed, woke up this morning feeling 100% normal... yay vaccines!

I was only double vaxxed and single boosted, got kinda wiped out all three times, got the new booster yesterday afternoon, mostly feelin' fine except for a sore arm (and an encroaching mild headache which I suspect is probably work-related). I'd planned to WFH or at least take the train in this morning but I did my usual half hour walk to work with no issues.

The other day I had to make conversation with an older lady who was having health problems but otherwise seemed perfectly lucid (this is what's known as "foreshadowing"). She told me how she was in the hospital recently where she uncovered a plot to harvest people's gall bladders so that new doctors could get surgical experience (because it was a "teaching hospital") (because a nurse told her that gall bladder-ectomy is supposedly "the easiest" surgery to learn to do?).

They also insisted she had COVID even though she knew she didn't. How, you might ask, did she know that? Because she takes zinc. Duh. Obviously. Zinc makes your body as inhospitable to viruses as the SURFACE OF MARS IS TO HUMAN LIFE. So what she had was definitely a cold (NB also...a virus?) but definitely couldn't have been COVID.

This went on for a while.

the lancet+jeffrey sachs have determined that the response to the pandemic was "a massive global failure at multiple levels"

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2822%2901585-9

they have recommendations on how to do better next time around. i definitely believe the world is going to do better next time. lesson learned, we won't make those mistakes again!

Yeah, the pandemic response has taught me that if some truly nasty bug gets unleashed into the population, humankind is just finished. Which is what a lot of people clearly want, so no biggie.

Relax it’s not like the conditions that all but guarantee increasingly frequent pandemics are continuing as though nothing happened

I absolutely think we'll do "schools open bars closed" next time fwiw

In Florida we'll start with "schools open bars open"

Superdysentery will have DeSantis doing press conferences from the toilet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S5hO3v37Io

Got bivalent booster yesterday, feel like I got hit by a bus today but know it will pass.

glad you were able to get it!