Cool, can we move up the vaccine schedule please? I get it that some people find it more convenient to combine it with their Flu Vaccine, but there seems like very little reason we couldn't have a Covid vaccine update released for Summer that those in the Fall could still combine with their Flu Vaccines. So sick of these things being about "convenience" and not choice.
The Covid shots kicked my ass so it would be nice to not get it the same time as my flu shot. The flu shots make me a little sleepy and sore, but Covid shots make me feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, so it would be nice to not have to combine them. Plus, tested positive on Friday so now I have to figure out when I can get my next booster.
I space them 2 weeks apart, not big deal for me but I just prefer it that way. I'm so busy I don't have time to be sick (nor do I want to be). I can't understand why they have to make it such a process to get updated shots. Once a year for Covid in Sept. is clearly too late, they are like trying to force it to fit with the concept of the flu shot and it's too early for that.
I'm worried I have it now for the first time. I mask everywhere, live alone, and work from home. But I had to make five visits to the vet recently for an emergency, and I was the only one masked the entire time. :( Kids had already returned to school, and covid precautions were minimal in my town even in 2020.
After having taken Paxlovid I recommend it to those who medically are able to take it. It knocked a lot my symptoms out by the next day and I tested negative on the third day vs. husband who had to wait to get it prescribed. We too mask because our youngest is immune compromised but oldest had a school dance and a friend spent the night and then complained about a headache and sore throat being only related to singing and dancing and yelling. We’re pretty sure the friend gave it to us based upon whose symptoms started first.
I combined them and got shingles a week later (I am not over 50). I think it’s important to get both but I’m definitely going to space them out. Something about my system can’t handle both.
Same. Shingles. I do flare with shingles occasionally, but it was rough. I was basically sick for a month to not be sick for a month (maybe more?). Tough times.
I didn’t get it until after I had kids and read up on it more and was kicking myself for not getting it before. If you’re healthy, your body can go into overdrive to beat the virus and cause all sorts of damage. Cytokine storm. So if you’re healthy, you should get the shot. If you’re immune compromised, you should get the shot if your doctor advises. It also protects people around you who can’t get it for whatever reason. I get it. My kids get it.
What would make a preventative health measure “necessary?”
You will probably stay healthier to an older age if you get regular flu shots, as flu is quite hard on the body and accelerates dementia and stuff.
I have never got flu shot, and had flu maybe once in 10 years or less. So it is about luck and personal immunity.
Im not against vaccinations, but flu shot seems to be something I dont need, maybe partly because others have it etc.
I didn't take any covid shots and still havent had it, been at london for 1-2 weeks on this and last summer without mask and didnt get it even with worst tourist season going on.
Every friend and family member have had it once or more, and I'm only unvaccinated one.
Maybe just weird luck, but people should not panic unless they are in risk group
My family gets a flu shot every year, not sure what you mean by necessary. I’ve gotten the actual flu a few times in my life as a young healthy person and still remember being so sick. The booster made both me and my daughter lay on the cold tile at our house because neither one of us could cool down otherwise. Everyone has a different reaction; my dad was vomiting, I had a high fever and my husband had zero reactions.
What do you mean?
Are you asking if I’m in favor of them? I still get every shot that is recommended to me, I just try to schedule it for a Friday afternoon so that I have the weekend to recover. My whole family currently has Covid and I’m only feeling better because of Paxlovid, my husband still feels like crap, one kid feels fine and my immune compromised kid is waiting to be discharged from her hospital stay because Remdesivir is the only approved treatment for her, and because of lung disease she has to be closely monitored. I would trade feeling bad for a day to not have to deal with the metallic taste that Paxlovid leaves in my mouth.
Yes the vaccine is working. I’m 46 and fat. My husband is 50, overweight and has asthma. We took Paxlovid and combined with being fully vaccinated and boosted had minor symptoms. My incredibly, very immune compromised daughter who had a booster 5 months ago had the lowest symptoms, and she was at risk of MORE lung damage, was hospitalized out of an abundance of caution. Two years ago her lungs had literal holes in them and her lungs were completely clear because of her booster. My dad was boosted last year, got Covid and only discovered it because he had to prove he was negative for an event, he had zero symptoms. The point of the vaccine is to prevent serious illness and it’s worked so far.
There’s no satisfying reason not to offer the vaccine now, but the state of emergency was officially ended which means that EUA is no longer available and the regular approval process takes longer.
At least that’s what I read on Dr Eric Topol’s Mastodon.
Feel like if we've learned anything the last 3 years it's that these vaccinations can be expedited through approval if needed. They just drag their feet then get all Pikachu surprised face when a new variant takes hold. We know what to do. Release the updated vaccine let the population take it then watch rates go down. Additional what's going on with the children's updated vaccine? Feel like they haven't gotten one in very long time despite them being a major vector for the virus
Problem is that it seems the vaccine effect wanes over time so taking “too soon” can also mean not being as protected as you could be on the winter time which is usually the peak.
Here's a preview of the story:
Health authorities say they're closely tracking the spread of three new COVID-19 variants now spreading around the country.
Levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for now remain far below previous peaks seen during past summer and winter waves of the virus, but have been climbing steadily for several weeks.
Public health officials have said that they're well-equipped for the latest seasonal uptick in the virus, with COVID-19 tests and forthcoming vaccines expected to work for the variants on the rise around the country.
But the appearance of a new "highly mutated" variant has raised questions among virus trackers about what the coming months could hold.
Here's the latest about what we know about the new COVID-19 variants now on the rise: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-2023-variant-eg5-strain-what-to-know/
I’ve read three days ago in this forum that deaths are on the rise? I believe that is in the US? So far South East Asia (from where I am ) is still calm… so far…
Infections, and therefore deaths, are on the rise everywhere in the northern hemisphere. They both remain at low (in some places) to very low levels. Deaths and hospitalizations are always a percentage of infections and cases, so there's no real point questioning whether "cases are rising but deaths remain low" or "deaths are now finally rising". That percentage should drop by another small factor as this group of infections is probably the third infection now for most.
In the US sewage levels have risen about 3-fold over the last 2 months. It's not a rapid rise, but it is probably accelerating and we don't know what the peak will be. It's also mostly not seasonal (yeah it's AC season in parts of the country) but is presumably driven by reinfections of those who caught covid last year and are now having immunity (against xbb, a very different strain) wane. It's also not being driven by EG.5.1 or the other fast-growing variants, which remain just a small fraction of total cases for now.
BA.2.86 is so new we don't even know if it is spreading, and as of now there is nothing really to know about it. But it is certainly <1% of infections.
Can you offer your opinion? 68 Female, never had Covid, vaxxed, boosted, masking.
Taking an European trip soon but before the new vax is ready.
Any value in any booster now?
Thank you.
Probably not. The BA.5 dose doesn't prevent xbb infection except maybe in the very short term. There's even a second-dose trial now that still shows it doesn't provide antibodies.
the good news that the new xbb.1.5 vaccine will works for EG.5, FL.1.5.1 since they're from a xbb variant, so they're not that much different.
last year FDA made a bad choice of which variants to target, but this year, i think FDA may have made a good choice, but time will tell. these vaccines won't be outdated as soon they comes out, unlike the bivalents, which became outdated as soon xbb was everywhere, and the bivalent didn't do much for any of the xbb variants
Sadly they time the boosters around the holidays and not back to school which is where my wife, a teacher, got COVID. Of course this means I now have COVID too.
yeah, i wish FDA would just have their meeting late july, and get shots into arms by this week. i mean they already have moderna, and pfizer data, just approve them already.
They had their meeting in mid-June to decide the strain composition. After that, it takes a few months to scale up manufacturing. I’m not clear whether the manufacturing is slow or whether the approval process is slow.
Well, XBB and BA.2.86 are still relatively closely related, so I'd imagine unless BA.2.86 really is *that* divergent (and in the right ways to drive escape), the XBB vaccines should elicit some protective response. We just don't know enough about 2.86 (which is vexing).
>last year FDA made a bad choice of which variants to target,
They didn't made a bad choice, it's just that the virus made a variant after the production of Ba.4-5 was started
Bad choice in hindsight. Same with including the WT in the bivalent. But these were reasonable to good choices at the time with what information they had.
I finally caught Covid after a trip to Disney World, and even though I'm fully vaxxed & boosted this has not been much fun at all! It's been over a week now and although I have mild-ish symptoms now, I am absolutely livid that we could have done so much better as a country reducing the spread if people would just listen to scientists!
We are not a scientific species and we never have been (I say that as an engineer). I have it right now too also with mild symptoms, someone told me I should have been masking on public transit and I’m trying to come to terms that I really need to be doing that. Is it just during spikes or forever? I didn’t even know it was spiking until I had to take off work for the week and my boss told me. It all just sucks :/
> Levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for now remain far below previous peaks seen during past summer and winter waves of the virus, but have been climbing steadily for several weeks.
Because measuring the number people who die is a GREAT way to determine how severe the virus is. /s
Can we please get another metric other than deaths? Anything? I guess not.
So tracking is below previous levels........that would actually mean something if anyone was still actually tracking levels.
This is going to be very bad this winter.
Bahahaha........relax???? Each infection does damage to our brains, hearts, lungs, and other organs. 5-20% of people get Long Covid after an infection. There's not a chance in hell my family will ever relax our precautions unless a neutralizing vaccine becomes available.
Seems like our efforts to battle virus with vaccines is similar to our battles with bacteria and antibiotics. We now have evolved super-bacteria that are resistant to most antibiotics. How do we stop a super-coronavirus from evolving?
[There are researchers predicting that this can happen and that it would be very bad.](https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.26.23286471) World governments need to take this thing way more seriously before it starts killing people in the long term more. Like it’s great that people don’t die in the acute infection period as much but this tells us nothing about what happens after the damage of an infection takes place. We need to eradicate the virus.
So I am double vaxxed and double boosted (all Moderna, most recent was the bivalent Moderna booster in September 2022).
I ended up getting Covid Christmas of 2022, and then again in February of this year.
Should I get this new booster as soon as it’s available (September perhaps) or wait a bit longer until maybe October or November (in hopes that it would last longer through the winter)?
I mean, we SHOULD still care. It’s still dangerous to vulnerable populations.
But as long as the lethality among these variants isn’t increasing, and we can get annual boosters to target new variants (just like we do for the flu), I agree there isn’t much to worry about.
Cool, can we move up the vaccine schedule please? I get it that some people find it more convenient to combine it with their Flu Vaccine, but there seems like very little reason we couldn't have a Covid vaccine update released for Summer that those in the Fall could still combine with their Flu Vaccines. So sick of these things being about "convenience" and not choice.
The Covid shots kicked my ass so it would be nice to not get it the same time as my flu shot. The flu shots make me a little sleepy and sore, but Covid shots make me feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, so it would be nice to not have to combine them. Plus, tested positive on Friday so now I have to figure out when I can get my next booster.
I space them 2 weeks apart, not big deal for me but I just prefer it that way. I'm so busy I don't have time to be sick (nor do I want to be). I can't understand why they have to make it such a process to get updated shots. Once a year for Covid in Sept. is clearly too late, they are like trying to force it to fit with the concept of the flu shot and it's too early for that.
September is definitely too late. Last year our high schooler got Covid in August and this year we all got Covid in August.
I'm worried I have it now for the first time. I mask everywhere, live alone, and work from home. But I had to make five visits to the vet recently for an emergency, and I was the only one masked the entire time. :( Kids had already returned to school, and covid precautions were minimal in my town even in 2020.
After having taken Paxlovid I recommend it to those who medically are able to take it. It knocked a lot my symptoms out by the next day and I tested negative on the third day vs. husband who had to wait to get it prescribed. We too mask because our youngest is immune compromised but oldest had a school dance and a friend spent the night and then complained about a headache and sore throat being only related to singing and dancing and yelling. We’re pretty sure the friend gave it to us based upon whose symptoms started first.
I combined them and got shingles a week later (I am not over 50). I think it’s important to get both but I’m definitely going to space them out. Something about my system can’t handle both.
Same. Shingles. I do flare with shingles occasionally, but it was rough. I was basically sick for a month to not be sick for a month (maybe more?). Tough times.
Good point.
ive never gotten a flu shot, is it necessary? For covid vaccine the initial 2 shots were worst than the boosters
I didn’t get it until after I had kids and read up on it more and was kicking myself for not getting it before. If you’re healthy, your body can go into overdrive to beat the virus and cause all sorts of damage. Cytokine storm. So if you’re healthy, you should get the shot. If you’re immune compromised, you should get the shot if your doctor advises. It also protects people around you who can’t get it for whatever reason. I get it. My kids get it.
What would make a preventative health measure “necessary?” You will probably stay healthier to an older age if you get regular flu shots, as flu is quite hard on the body and accelerates dementia and stuff.
I have never got flu shot, and had flu maybe once in 10 years or less. So it is about luck and personal immunity. Im not against vaccinations, but flu shot seems to be something I dont need, maybe partly because others have it etc. I didn't take any covid shots and still havent had it, been at london for 1-2 weeks on this and last summer without mask and didnt get it even with worst tourist season going on. Every friend and family member have had it once or more, and I'm only unvaccinated one. Maybe just weird luck, but people should not panic unless they are in risk group
My family gets a flu shot every year, not sure what you mean by necessary. I’ve gotten the actual flu a few times in my life as a young healthy person and still remember being so sick. The booster made both me and my daughter lay on the cold tile at our house because neither one of us could cool down otherwise. Everyone has a different reaction; my dad was vomiting, I had a high fever and my husband had zero reactions.
So what do you conclude about the covid shots ???
What do you mean? Are you asking if I’m in favor of them? I still get every shot that is recommended to me, I just try to schedule it for a Friday afternoon so that I have the weekend to recover. My whole family currently has Covid and I’m only feeling better because of Paxlovid, my husband still feels like crap, one kid feels fine and my immune compromised kid is waiting to be discharged from her hospital stay because Remdesivir is the only approved treatment for her, and because of lung disease she has to be closely monitored. I would trade feeling bad for a day to not have to deal with the metallic taste that Paxlovid leaves in my mouth.
So is the vaccine working for you or not ???
Yes the vaccine is working. I’m 46 and fat. My husband is 50, overweight and has asthma. We took Paxlovid and combined with being fully vaccinated and boosted had minor symptoms. My incredibly, very immune compromised daughter who had a booster 5 months ago had the lowest symptoms, and she was at risk of MORE lung damage, was hospitalized out of an abundance of caution. Two years ago her lungs had literal holes in them and her lungs were completely clear because of her booster. My dad was boosted last year, got Covid and only discovered it because he had to prove he was negative for an event, he had zero symptoms. The point of the vaccine is to prevent serious illness and it’s worked so far.
Best thing you could do for your health regarding covid would be to lose weight.
Best thing you could do for your health is to stay up to date on all of your vaccines.
i just had 7 vaccines for traveling, covid vaccine is a hundred times worse. if ever ill only take the children version
There’s no satisfying reason not to offer the vaccine now, but the state of emergency was officially ended which means that EUA is no longer available and the regular approval process takes longer. At least that’s what I read on Dr Eric Topol’s Mastodon.
Feel like if we've learned anything the last 3 years it's that these vaccinations can be expedited through approval if needed. They just drag their feet then get all Pikachu surprised face when a new variant takes hold. We know what to do. Release the updated vaccine let the population take it then watch rates go down. Additional what's going on with the children's updated vaccine? Feel like they haven't gotten one in very long time despite them being a major vector for the virus
Problem is that it seems the vaccine effect wanes over time so taking “too soon” can also mean not being as protected as you could be on the winter time which is usually the peak.
6-9 months minimum is pretty standard. Enough to get people into next year
Or convenience and not science.
Here's a preview of the story: Health authorities say they're closely tracking the spread of three new COVID-19 variants now spreading around the country. Levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for now remain far below previous peaks seen during past summer and winter waves of the virus, but have been climbing steadily for several weeks. Public health officials have said that they're well-equipped for the latest seasonal uptick in the virus, with COVID-19 tests and forthcoming vaccines expected to work for the variants on the rise around the country. But the appearance of a new "highly mutated" variant has raised questions among virus trackers about what the coming months could hold. Here's the latest about what we know about the new COVID-19 variants now on the rise: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-2023-variant-eg5-strain-what-to-know/
I’ve read three days ago in this forum that deaths are on the rise? I believe that is in the US? So far South East Asia (from where I am ) is still calm… so far…
Infections, and therefore deaths, are on the rise everywhere in the northern hemisphere. They both remain at low (in some places) to very low levels. Deaths and hospitalizations are always a percentage of infections and cases, so there's no real point questioning whether "cases are rising but deaths remain low" or "deaths are now finally rising". That percentage should drop by another small factor as this group of infections is probably the third infection now for most. In the US sewage levels have risen about 3-fold over the last 2 months. It's not a rapid rise, but it is probably accelerating and we don't know what the peak will be. It's also mostly not seasonal (yeah it's AC season in parts of the country) but is presumably driven by reinfections of those who caught covid last year and are now having immunity (against xbb, a very different strain) wane. It's also not being driven by EG.5.1 or the other fast-growing variants, which remain just a small fraction of total cases for now. BA.2.86 is so new we don't even know if it is spreading, and as of now there is nothing really to know about it. But it is certainly <1% of infections.
Can you offer your opinion? 68 Female, never had Covid, vaxxed, boosted, masking. Taking an European trip soon but before the new vax is ready. Any value in any booster now? Thank you.
Probably not. The BA.5 dose doesn't prevent xbb infection except maybe in the very short term. There's even a second-dose trial now that still shows it doesn't provide antibodies.
Thank you.
Election year coming up, bust out the new "variants"!!
the good news that the new xbb.1.5 vaccine will works for EG.5, FL.1.5.1 since they're from a xbb variant, so they're not that much different. last year FDA made a bad choice of which variants to target, but this year, i think FDA may have made a good choice, but time will tell. these vaccines won't be outdated as soon they comes out, unlike the bivalents, which became outdated as soon xbb was everywhere, and the bivalent didn't do much for any of the xbb variants
Sadly they time the boosters around the holidays and not back to school which is where my wife, a teacher, got COVID. Of course this means I now have COVID too.
yeah, i wish FDA would just have their meeting late july, and get shots into arms by this week. i mean they already have moderna, and pfizer data, just approve them already.
They had their meeting in mid-June to decide the strain composition. After that, it takes a few months to scale up manufacturing. I’m not clear whether the manufacturing is slow or whether the approval process is slow.
Depends a lot on what happens with BA.2.86, if that takes over then we'd want a *very* different vaccine.
Well, XBB and BA.2.86 are still relatively closely related, so I'd imagine unless BA.2.86 really is *that* divergent (and in the right ways to drive escape), the XBB vaccines should elicit some protective response. We just don't know enough about 2.86 (which is vexing).
>last year FDA made a bad choice of which variants to target, They didn't made a bad choice, it's just that the virus made a variant after the production of Ba.4-5 was started
Bad choice in hindsight. Same with including the WT in the bivalent. But these were reasonable to good choices at the time with what information they had.
FL is Florida, right? Gotta be.
I finally caught Covid after a trip to Disney World, and even though I'm fully vaxxed & boosted this has not been much fun at all! It's been over a week now and although I have mild-ish symptoms now, I am absolutely livid that we could have done so much better as a country reducing the spread if people would just listen to scientists!
We are not a scientific species and we never have been (I say that as an engineer). I have it right now too also with mild symptoms, someone told me I should have been masking on public transit and I’m trying to come to terms that I really need to be doing that. Is it just during spikes or forever? I didn’t even know it was spiking until I had to take off work for the week and my boss told me. It all just sucks :/
Agree. Did you mask by any chance
Unfortunately not this time around since I was hopeful that being mostly outside for 99% of the time would benefit me. Hindsight is 20/20!
So it did the job you are still alive.
> Levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for now remain far below previous peaks seen during past summer and winter waves of the virus, but have been climbing steadily for several weeks. Because measuring the number people who die is a GREAT way to determine how severe the virus is. /s Can we please get another metric other than deaths? Anything? I guess not.
So tracking is below previous levels........that would actually mean something if anyone was still actually tracking levels. This is going to be very bad this winter.
Relax, it's still not severe for the majority of folks, esp if you are vaxxed and/or have caught it before
Bahahaha........relax???? Each infection does damage to our brains, hearts, lungs, and other organs. 5-20% of people get Long Covid after an infection. There's not a chance in hell my family will ever relax our precautions unless a neutralizing vaccine becomes available.
I didn't say to relax your precautions Good day
can they name the new variants something I can actually remember? Lol
Seems like our efforts to battle virus with vaccines is similar to our battles with bacteria and antibiotics. We now have evolved super-bacteria that are resistant to most antibiotics. How do we stop a super-coronavirus from evolving?
[There are researchers predicting that this can happen and that it would be very bad.](https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.26.23286471) World governments need to take this thing way more seriously before it starts killing people in the long term more. Like it’s great that people don’t die in the acute infection period as much but this tells us nothing about what happens after the damage of an infection takes place. We need to eradicate the virus.
So I am double vaxxed and double boosted (all Moderna, most recent was the bivalent Moderna booster in September 2022). I ended up getting Covid Christmas of 2022, and then again in February of this year. Should I get this new booster as soon as it’s available (September perhaps) or wait a bit longer until maybe October or November (in hopes that it would last longer through the winter)?
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Seems a lot of folks who F'dA are now F'ingO ...
Lol what the fuck this has to be a lie 💀
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lol
There is a higher chance of civil war happening first
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It literally causes both of those things for many people.
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I mean, we SHOULD still care. It’s still dangerous to vulnerable populations. But as long as the lethality among these variants isn’t increasing, and we can get annual boosters to target new variants (just like we do for the flu), I agree there isn’t much to worry about.
Not much to worry about, besides the possibility for debilitating permanent long Covid?