I just got a booster. Just before Christmas, the NZ government announced that the time period between 2nd shot and booster would drop from six months to four months in early January 2022. I’m sitting on five months, and news reports indicate that most vaccination sites started providing boosters to those 4 months out immediately. So I went to a local site on New Years Day, and 15 minutes later was out and boosted.
This means I have extra cover while we are taking a summer vacation and visiting family for the rest of January. The rest of the family will be eligible for boosters when we return from our trips away. We have had a couple of omicron scares after Christmas, but it looks like at least one of those may have been a false positive result from a historic case, and the other was contained in a family bubble (aircrew member and family). So we may have dodged the omicron bullet for a few more weeks.
My son-in-law (a physician) told me it looks like I’ll be eligible for a second booster/fourth vaccination on February 11 (my booster was on 9/11). He suggested that unless I contract COVID before that date I should get the second booster. (I’m on an immunosuppresive drug for Polymyalgia Rheumatica)
I’m on probably a similar drug for ulcerative colitis. I just emailed my doctor to see if I should get a fourth shot. The answer is probably, “no harm, may as well.”
I got my “booster” in August, when it was actually just a third full dose, so if I do get a fourth shot, it will be a true half-dose booster. Hopefully that means less of a reaction. It was certainly tolerable before, but no need to suffer if I don’t have to.
Judging just by the tales in this very thread, it seems to be all over the place. My half-dose Moderna booster (eight months after the first two) produced side-effects just a little bit worse than the original Moderna shots, which was still fairly mild.
So it turns out there was some confusion on the second booster appointment I had before, but now there is come clarity, in San Francisco at least, that J&J receipients should get a third shot now. My second shot was the Moderna “supplemental” dose (i.e. one full dose shot of the standard two dose Moderna regimen, unlike a booster which is a half dose shot). For the third shot, I have a choice of Pfizer or Moderna. I know Moderna has generally had better results head-to-head, but has anyone seen anything that indicates if mixing and matching is better or worse?
I downloaded the record of my booster shot today from the Safeway/Albertsons site.
It lists what I got as “Moderna 3rd dose.” Now I’m not sure if I got the booster dose or the 3rd full dose, which is what immunocompromised people get. I don’t really care either way, but it is confusing if they are describing boosters that way.
Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are very similar, and the biggest difference seems to be that the dose is larger for Moderna. I think that Pfizer, a large and experienced drug company, was aiming to minimize side effects, and Moderna, an upstart no one had heard of, wanted to be very very sure their vaccine worked on their initial submission.
Older people are both at higher risk from covid and at lower risk for vaccine side effects. If you are under 35 I’d pick Pfizer. If you are over 60 I’d pick Moderna. In between, my guess is it doesn’t matter. And I doubt it matters much even for younger and older people.
(There is some evidence that there’s a benefit to mixing the mRNA vaccines [Pfizer, Moderna] with an adenovirus vaccine [J&J, AstraZeneca] but you’ve already done that.)
Note that I am not a doctor, nor a vaccine researcher. I’ve just read a lot of crap about the vaccines, and this is only my best guess. It’s worth what you paid for it.
So I went in today thinking I would just continue with Moderna, but then they only had Pfizer and so I got that instead. I have now had a dose of all three of the U.S. vaccines and am patiently waiting for my superpowers to activate. Any minute now.
Had my booster on 9/11. Scheduled my second booster for Valentine’s Day, partly because by doing so I will qualify for flight to St Martin in March (otherwise we lose all the $$$ we spent on flight, lodging, etc)
