That’s interesting. I got my flu shot a couple of weeks ago I could swear that the paperwork said that I couldn’t have had any other vaccinations within the last two weeks. I could definitely be wrong though and I would have done the same as you.
I signed up for a J&J over Pfizer study, but if they fill up, i plan to get a third Pfizer. It looks like the qualifying conditions are very broad, so when i hit my 6 month mark i expect to qualify.
My wife is suspected of having a condition that would make if very very bad for her to get the flu much less COVID, so here doctor said both she and I should get the third dose. My reactions have gotten steadily worse. First dose no reaction, second dose in bed for most of the next day, third dose, in bed for a day and a half.
As a grocery store employee I’m eligible for a booster, so I’ll be looking to schedule one sometime next week or the week after, which will be six months after my second dose.
My wife got hers today, almost 7 months after the second shot. She made an appointment at a CVS, and filled out the paperwork on line which saved time. She got a flu shot also. Arm a little sore, that’s it.
She is getting a hip replacement next month and wanted to be sure. And we’re over 65 so we qualify.
I had Moderna shots in March. So depending on if they go with six-months-after or stick with eight-months-after, I’ll be due for #3 in October or December. I presume that FDA will approve Moderna boosters by December if not sooner.
Since I am 60 and diabetic I am eligible for my third shot of the Pfizer vaccine on October 23rd. I will be there for my booster on the 23rd of course.
I got my flu shot last week (and covid #3 yesterday). When I filled out the questionnaire for the flu shot, there was a question, “Have you had any other vaccinations in the last two weeks?” (and I hadn’t), but no statement that that was a disqualifier.
When I scheduled the covid booster, I called the local covid questions-hotline and asked if it was okay to have the booster within a week of getting the flu shot, referring to that question, and the person said, “Yes, you can get the two shots together. That question is for the purpose of identifying whether any side effect is due to another vaccine.” <shrug> That answer satisfied me.
This WaPo article is not paywalled (according to them):
Can you get a covid booster and a flu shot at the same time?
Yes. The CDC has given the go-ahead to receive a dose of the coronavirus vaccine and other vaccines at the same time — a change from a previous recommendation to wait a minimum of 14 days between the different vaccinations.
“Now that we have so much experience with these covid-19 vaccines, which we didn’t have when they were first introduced, we are quite comfortable saying it’s fine to give them with other vaccines,” Moore said.
According to the CDC, the past guidance was issued during the early stages of the coronavirus vaccine rollout “out of an abundance of caution.”
“We wanted to get a very clear sense of what the side effect profile was in the real world,” Schaffner said.
For now, getting two shots offers convenience: “The pro is pretty obvious, You go once and you’re done and it’s over with,” said Gabe Kelen, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response.
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Oh, good to know. I’ll look into that!
Husband is getting both flu and Pfizer #3 today, so he’ll be a total butthole tomorrow. Thoughts and prayers (for me) accepted.
My vaccine card was (swear to god) eaten by my puppy. I have the pieces, and a good photo, and enough survived to make it clear it’s the same card. I am hoping this doesn’t make it impossible to get a booster.
It shouldn’t. I just had a photo of my card and I got my 3rd dose
That’s great to hear. Thanks.
So, if I’m reading the CDC website correctly, being overweight is a qualifying condition. So 2/3s of Americans qualify right off the bat.
So, is 8 months out still a sweet spot for timing?
Made my appointment for my third dose, November 4th at 10am. I turn 65 this Sunday, the 4th is exactly 6 months from my second jab.
6 months according to the pharmacist that gave me my flu shot yesterday. If I was 65, she said she would have given me the third shot at the same time as the flu shot.
CDC website says at least 6 months. I thought I remembered 8 months being bandied about by some organization or another.
Same, more or less.
It was, but apparently it was a little more logistical than medical based on initial concerns about supply and lingering questions of timing on full approval. The booster timing is apparently slightly arbitrary anyway, but six months apparently seemed like the best sweet spot based on the available data and that is where the CDC and the administration finally landed.
I won’t hit my half-anniversary (six-month) of my second dose until late October, but I’m not in a high-risk population anyway. I think I’ll probably sit on my hands a while, but if they approve for the 5-and-up set next month, and there’s still plenty of supply, I may just go get it.
There is actually almost no science behind the specifics of the FDA recommendation, and that the CDC is basically leaving it up to individuals to decide when (and indeed, if) they get a third shot is basically an admission that they do not know, either. In normal vaccine trials, there would be a long term efficacy phase after the first three safety/efficacy phases in the initial trial to evaluate how robust immunogenicity is and refine the vaccination schedule, but because there was such a need to get the vaccine out to the public, we are essentially doing the long term efficacy ‘trials’ in real time and without the kind of close controls and experiment design that would normally be done. This is why there was just a…fevered…discussion on the CDC Advisory Panel call about the recommendation for ‘boosters’ for younger people with high occupational exposure.
A number of virologists and epidemiologists have expressed the opinion that the third shot should actually be considered part of the normal vaccine schedule rather than a ‘booster’, and that the initial spacing of 3-4 weeks between shots may have not been sufficient to achieve maximum immunogenicity (the latter based upon data from the UK where they delayed second shots to get a broader distribution of initial shots) but since this is all based upon field data and not controlled clinical trials, and separating different clades is difficult because of the limited amount of patient-specific information about vaccinations and infections combined with uncertainty about the actual increase in infectivity of the ‘Delta’ variant, it is tough to draw definitive conclusions other than that overall immunity appears to wane over a period of >6 months (but the vaccine still provides robust protection against severe morbidity and mortality in otherwise healthy people, and is significantly protective of even older people and those with underlying conditions).
One of the contentions is that boosters should really be reserved for those people who are severely immunocompromised and therefore never developed a robust response in the first case, but since this group was never studied in initial trials estimates of even the initial efficacy of the vaccine are basically guesswork. Predictive functionality of the immune system is pretty much big unknown to medical science which is apparent to anyone who has had to deal with an auto-immune disease and heard physician after physician either openly guess or just admit that they don’t know if or how well any treatment will work, or indeed what even causes many auto-immune disorders. Vaccines are a miracle of modern medicine, but they are still kind of magic in terms of how and why they actually work or (or don’t, as the case may be).
Stranger
I’ve mentioned before my, uh, intense reaction to shots. (short version: don’t like 'em). Watching the approval process was a roller coaster, with me being thrilled when they were edging away from approving htem, worried when they were going toward approval, back and forth.
I’m currently eligible for one, but given the complete lack of consensus over whether I should get one, I’m finding it real hard to motivate myself. If it were a clear process with a clear consensus, I’d do it, no matter how much I hated it.
But now? Goddamn, they don’t make this easy with all their bickering.
Pandemics are never easy.