COVID-19: Chapter 10 - Mission Achomlished!

Yup, two months since last booster is the guideline.

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Cool. I was asking since the NYT article above seems to suggest waiting 4-6 months.

I just made the same appointment for Sunday. I canā€™t tell if itā€™s the updated dose or not but Iā€™m seeing the same thing as you.

Edit: Assuming that was bullshit, I also made an appoitnmetn for a week from today at Walgreens for Pfizer. If I can get Moderna before then I guess I will, otherwise Pfizer it will be.

4 months after an infection? i had covid earlier in august. does that mean i gotta wait until december for booster when it might not be free anymore?

No. Two months is sufficient (assuming that infection is treated similarly to prior booster). You could do less if you wanted (i.e., donā€™t mention the infection). In the article, they explain the potential benefit of waiting longer.

I really wouldnā€™t sweat the ā€œnot be freeā€ part. I highly doubt it will be a problem.

There seems to be different answers to this question (how long to wait after infection) depending on who you ask.

(1) On the Newshour tonight, Dr. Fauci gave this answer:

Judy Woodruff: And what about the guidelines, Dr. Fauci, in terms of how long to wait after oneā€™s most recent shot or booster or after oneā€™s had COVID?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, after the ā€” as the FDA had mentioned and the CDC also is that, when youā€™re talking about when your last shot was, you need to wait at least eight weeks or two months. When youā€™re dealing with a prior infection, you should wait about three months, at least three months from the time that you had a prior infection.

I myself am in that category. And thatā€™s exactly what Iā€™m going to follow. I was vaccinated, doubly boosted, but I got infected towards the middle and end of June. So Iā€™m looking forward to getting the updated BA.5 variant vaccine. And Iā€™m going to wait three months. So that will put me somewhere around the late part and end of September.

(2) This Johns Hopkins page has a completely different answer:

Do you have to wait 90 days after having COVID to get a bivalent vaccine?

AD: No specific timeline has been established for the bivalent vaccine, but in general, it is better to wait a whileā€”most experts recommend at least a monthā€”after getting COVID to get vaccinated.

AP: I hope this question will be addressed in the FDA/CDC recommendations for the bivalent booster. Ideally, they will specify how long after a booster dose or infection individuals should wait before receiving a bivalent booster shot. Regardless, for optimal, long-term responses, boosters should be spaced out.

Iā€™m in same boat as Fauci (tested positive June 20), so I guess Iā€™ll wait until the end of the month. :man_shrugging:

Iā€™m really going to try to get Moderna once Iā€™m ready to get this booster. Unless the volume isnā€™t actually the concentration of spike protein but just the total volume including the diluent. Does anybody know? If you actually get more in Moderna than I want more! 15ug of Omicron spike protein in Pfizer doesnā€™t sound like enough considering that the original presentation was 30ug (Pfizer) and 50ug (Moderna).

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Update: I spent 6 hours yesterday with my older daughter, who traveled down from NYC to see me and her younger sister. She noted having a sore throat, but otherwise felt fine and tested negative yesterday morning.

I just received a text from her stating that she tested positive this morning. She had been infected in the very first wave in 3/2020 and is triple vaxxed. Of the 5 hours we spent together yesterday, the last three were indoors while we were hanging out and then having dinner.

I guess Iā€™ll have to see if my no-COVID luck expires before I can get the Omicron booster later this week :frowning:

Iā€™m hoping that maybe she was not yet sick enough yesterday to have a high enough viral load to infect me, but thatā€™s probably wishful thinking.

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You are getting a booster either way. :roll_eyes:

Hopefully you get it from without a side of actual Covid. Damn kids. All grown up and still little disease vectors.

Seems like this figure is mistaken. Neither vaccine contains proteins, but rather only has mRNA to code for the protein coated in a little bubble of fancy fat.

Yeah I understand that and it was probably a choice to write it that way for the average moron like me. But the main point of the figure is the volume in each dose, correct?

Probably? Itā€™s not unreasonable to think that more micrograms more problems more efficacy, but itā€™s certainly not a linear relationship. The two have always been really, really close. Personally, even if I knew for a fact that Pfizer were a few percent less effective than Moderna, which is not necessarily true, Iā€™d still rather just get boosted sooner.

If youā€™re really concerned about this you could just get two Pfizers if thatā€™s all you can get. Just get one jab and walk down the street to a different pharmacy to get a second. That gets you to 30+30 which is very close to Moderna.

As Wookie said, the relationship between the amount of active agent and the ultimate effectiveness is not really clear. So, itā€™s not clear that this would benefit you. But I suppose itā€™s also not certain that it wouldnā€™t.

Update: the cvs website was correct. I am currently at cvs about to get the updated moderna shot.

Edit: boosted! Two weeks till I can start licking doorknobs again.

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My guess is that the higher dose has no meaningful impact on efficacy but does increase durability of that efficacy.

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Both of our local CVSā€™s (inside Targets) had plenty of appointments for the new booster. Wife and I are scheduled for Friday.

We have two CVSā€™s, one on each side of town. One has Moderna, one has Pfizer. Wife and I are 3x Pfizer so went Moderna this time.

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What is this guess based on?

I am not aware of any evidence for this, and there is ample reason to be skeptical. The mRNA and the ensuing proteins are in your system for very small amounts of time compared with vaccine efficacy.

Based on the efficacy of the original shots being pretty damn close, but Moderna lasting longer. IIRC thatā€™s what the data eventually showed.

Moderna protection has lasted longer in trials and the efficacy against the original strain was similar, right?

I think youā€™re right about the lack of evidence, but he did say it was just a guess. And I suppose more mRNA ā†’ more protein ā†’ stronger immune response ā†’ immune response lasts longer is possible, if not plausible.