Coronavirus

Made my appointment for my booster this Friday. Annoyingly, the nearest place I can get is in the next town over (30 minutes each way). All the drugs stores in town only offer the Moderna booster, and I got Pzifer.

Things are also coming to a decision point with my family. Plans are underway for the family camping trip this summer, and most of my extended family haven't received the COVID vaccine. They are all right-wing, and if they admitted that COVID was a big enough deal to get a vaccine for, then they'd also have to admit that it actually is a big deal, it's not "just like the flu," and maybe quarantines, mask mandates, etc. were necessary. Or at least that's my read of the situation.

We went last year because my wife and I were fully vaccinated, our kid was young and low risk, and the risks of breakthrough infections weren't really known. And of course there was no omicron variant. But now things have changed and, assuming that the disease will still be running rampant, I don't want to go hang out with a bunch of unvaxxed people from across the country.

So I have to decide if I want to tell my relatives that, and deal with potential fallout up to and including getting cut off, or come up with another reason to bow out this year. (There is another true reason, which is the weather last year was miserable; hot and dry and with no potable water.) But I think giving another reason is only delaying the inevitable.

Sigh.

Wife (47) and kid (5) have it - Day 4 or 5 - light congestion, mild fevers, mostly malaise and lethargy on wife's side were the worst of the symptoms and they are pretty much over it thank goodness. Wife was a breakthrough infection - Wife had Pfizer, I had Moderna - I still have no symptoms.

Glad things have been mild at least, sorry to hear about your family.

southernman wrote: I feel bad for all you guys having side affects, I've had three shots this year (2 x AZ and a Pfizer) plus a flu one and haven't noticed any of them ... I worry that I have no immune system hence the lack of reaction . But at least all of us are safe for another 6 months .

This was me, and to some extent my wife. Three shots of Moderna and the flu shot, very mild symptoms (mostly arm soreness and maybe a little fatigue). I'm 45, but all the youngins (20 and 30 somethings) in my office are getting put on their ass by the booster, fevers and feeling like crap. I generally have a pretty good immune system despite being a type-1 diabetic, but I do wonder if there's a correlation to how you respond to the vaccine as to how you'd respond to the virus. Probably not, since mRNA is nothing like the disease itself, but it seems very random. My generally unhealthy father-in-law has had no issues, whereas the fairly healthy mother-in-law gets super sick with each Moderna shot.

Still, prefer not to get Covid to try the theory out...

Sorry about your family boothwah.

I just got The Boost and I’m very grateful that I live in a place that has this stuff available for me. One of my coworkers lives in Hungary and they have vaccines, but it’s basically a you-get-what-we-got situation so she had Moderna and her partner got Sputnik. Out of curiosity they went for antibody tests after and she had a healthy number, he had nearly none.

I got sick both times I got the shot, so I expect to feel bad later or wake up feeling sick. It’s a day of two of feeling bad and the payoff is priceless.

My wife and I got the hipster small-batch vaccines easy this year (Novavax trial). The second shot of that stuff knocked me down for a day. She basically felt fine through it.

She got a booster recently (mRNA, not Novavax), and it was a good two days out for her this time. Fever, lethargic, poor sleep, etc. It seems highly variable depending on the person.

I'm sort of waiting to see the story for Novavax boosters, but info has been slim (other than that you can jump to an mRNA booster if you want to). It's had pretty good study results even against variants, so I'm not in a huge hurry.

The worst part of the Moderna booster, for me, has been the fatigue. The best part is that I have been sleeping soundly for the last several nights. I feel fine today.

Weirdly my first two Pfizer shots both caused me to sleep a lot afterwards; my Pfizer booster I had no reacton to other than a mildly sore arm.

n815e wrote: Dealerships: I can afford to buy new now so I do and that comes with some “free” service and coverage of parts and labor for many problems for years. I often end up not paying anything other than my time. If it is something I have to pay for, there comes the sense that I am getting expertise and, importantly, a parts supply chain that means I’m not tacking on time to get parts that have, in the past, sometimes added days without my car. My dealership is about a mile away, I can walk home and back

I have a bunch of disreputable mechanics around that, from experience, I wouldn’t use again and one good one that is so backed up even minor repairs can take more than a day (and then add on needing to get parts). It’s how it is here. Maybe elsewhere it is different. When I bought used cars I was less picky about where I went, but it was not the best set of experiences.

My wife went to go talk to a money manager who wants to be in charge of our IRA. at 1.5% he would make about $6k a year from us. I get how it works--they get 50 clients and they are sitting pretty. But one thing he told us is that my wife can withdraw money from her PERS account from the few years she worked for the state of Oregon, in about nine months. So we will probably buy our first new car, before turning 60! We're thinking a Prius, so we can take some vacations while our bodies still function.

Our local reliable mechanic has a two week waiting list. I told him he should charge more.

We had a church party with 220 people on the 10th. I'm now waiting to see if Covid punishes us for our hubris and carelessness. Covid doesn't care about your politics, or your good intentions.

Booster is killing me: muscle aches, headache, fatigue, fever

Last night, I was the only person at the gym wearing a mask. Omicron is coming. There are four lights.

Had our first breakthrough at work (he's fully vaxed, but not boosted yet), sat 5 feet from him for much of Monday. He didn't get symptoms until Tuesday afternoon and it hit him hard on Wednesday. Fortunately he stayed home Tuesday for unrelated reasons and skipped our company Christmas party on Wednesday. Found out yesterday afternoon when he got his test back, so off to get my first ever PCR test today. But my rapid at-home test came back negative, and I'm fully boosted, so my risk is low.

I hate to say it, but at this point, "boosted" is the new "vaccinated."