Coronavirus 5: Let the Vaccination Begin

[Dandruff]

I'm two weeks past my second Pfizer shot but haven't been able to enjoy any new "freedom" yet.  The weather yesterday wasn't great.  Today I have a maintenance person in my apartment.  Someday soon - I hope - I'm going to take a walk, and when I'm not around crowds or anyone coughing or sneezing I'll be walking with my mask off.  It has been my goal for the last year.  The mask(s) will stay on (of course) when I'm in indoor common spaces...or at times like right now when I'm sitting in my living room with a maintenance guy working on stuff.

[onekidanddone]

Just had my first Pfizer and sitting here for fifteen minutes. Was supposed to get the J&J shot today, however Maryland put a halt to it this morning.
 

The county health department sent out emails offering the Pfizer instead. 
It was either switch to Pfizer or wait to reschedule the J&J. 

No way I was going to put this off any longer so here I sit. 
 

 

[catlady]

I’m in the waiting area too!  I got Moderna; my friend had an email on Saturday with a bunch of new openings, and they had evening slots all week.  I had expected to have to wait another month or more, so I was happy to get this one.  

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, OHFL2009 said:

I was not excited to see this today after getting my J&J shot on Sunday. I know it's super rare (looks like less than 1 in a million who have gotten the shot so far reported) but I was very excited to be vaccinated and now I'm nervous. It looks like all reported cases occurred within 2 weeks of the shot, so now I guess I have even more reason to countdown to 2 weeks from Sunday.

If the J&J is the same as the Astra-Zeneca vaccine then they are recommending monitoring for symptoms for 20 days post-shot.  As you said, it's very rare, and if you had no issues with the first shot it's even rarer to have issues with the second.

[OHFL2009]

12 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

If the J&J is the same as the Astra-Zeneca vaccine then they are recommending monitoring for symptoms for 20 days post-shot.  As you said, it's very rare, and if you had no issues with the first shot it's even rarer to have issues with the second.

The J&J is only 1 shot, so I don't have anything to compare this one to. They said all the cases have occurred within 13 days of the shot, so once I get to 2 weeks I'll definitely feel less nervous, but I did tell my husband that if he has to take me to the ER for any of the symptoms, make sure to tell them I had that shot. I'm not really worried, because it's so rare, more just something in the back of my mind that I would've rather not had to think about.

[K'Z'K]

I got the J&J the day before the pause was announced, so I'm in the same situation as @OHFL2009. I can't quite decide if I'm happy I got the one-shot shot while I could, or freaked out about why it got pulled and wishing I had gotten one of the others. I know that it's damn near guaranteed that I'll be fine, but . . .

I may have to avoid the news for a bit. I already got the vaccine, so there is nothing to do but wait and see if I have issues, and staring at the scaremongering headlines stresses me out [OMG, one of the symptoms of this clot is a bad headache, and I have a bad headache! Oh, wait, I've had bad headaches since I was a kid and I haven't taken any NSAIDs in a few days. Just normal then. And it's only been 2 days and the clots formed after 6-13 days. So next week's bad headaches . . . will still just be my normal bad headaches].

For now, I'm waiting for my immunity to build up and planning all the things I shall do then (still following distancing and masking guidelines as needed). I'm seriously looking forward to having places to go and things to do and choosing to turn them down.

 

[adidas]

On 4/9/2021 at 7:22 PM, Ozlsn said:

Meanwhile our rollout has hit another speed bump with the Astra-Zeneca vaccine now being not suggested for under-50 year olds due to the clotting risk. This has led to people with appointments being turned away today, ffs, and a lot of confusion. The only vaccine we really have here is the A-Z vaccine, with a limited amount of Pfizer. CSL is making the A-Z vaccine under licence, but we don't have capacity at this stage to produce the RNA vaccines. 

To be honest I'm frustrated. Yes, there is a clotting risk, but it is significantly less than the risk of DVT caused by travelling or of clotting caused by the pill. My state will let you get the vaccine as long as you're aware of the risks, which hopefully means the rollout will continue, but at this rate I'll be over 70 before I get vaccinated. I am now extremely dubious as to whether I'll be able to travel internationally again ever - well other than to NZ, which I am travelling the hell out of ASAP.

I was so close to getting the A-Z ?

I have an appointment to discuss everything with my Dr soon, and because the risk is so tiny I might ask if he thinks I should still go ahead. If not, I’ll get the seasonal flu shot and join back in the queue. 

Have you travelled to NZ much before? We are tossing up WA, NT and NZ at the moment. I’m getting itchy feet but we won’t travel for at least 13 months ( I had a 3 week Qld getaway in January ?)  

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, adidas said:

I was so close to getting the A-Z ?

I have an appointment to discuss everything with my Dr soon, and because the risk is so tiny I might ask if he thinks I should still go ahead. If not, I’ll get the seasonal flu shot and join back in the queue. 

Have you travelled to NZ much before? We are tossing up WA, NT and NZ at the moment. I’m getting itchy feet but we won’t travel for at least 13 months ( I had a 3 week Qld getaway in January ?)  

I am so far off getting it at this stage I think it'll be next year.

Only been to Auckland, have been eyeing off further travel ever since. Having said that, we're on the Great Ocean Rd right now - no tour buses, and even with school holidays it's very quiet. Good time to be here - and I'm very aware that we are fortunate to be mostly open, mostly normal (although I still feel weird without a mask on in supermarkets - I am never quite sure where the regulations are at, so have one on me at all times.)

[adidas]

48 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

I am so far off getting it at this stage I think it'll be next year.

Only been to Auckland, have been eyeing off further travel ever since. Having said that, we're on the Great Ocean Rd right now - no tour buses, and even with school holidays it's very quiet. Good time to be here - and I'm very aware that we are fortunate to be mostly open, mostly normal (although I still feel weird without a mask on in supermarkets - I am never quite sure where the regulations are at, so have one on me at all times.)

Enjoy your time!

I still mask up to Uber but I have seen about 3 masks in the past week whilst visiting Sydney. I flew with Qantas recently and even with them requesting it of passengers, only about half wore masks ?

In my city I haven’t seen a mask for months (but we haven’t had any cases here for over a year). Complacency is what will get us.

[Ozlsn]

19 minutes ago, adidas said:

In my city I haven’t seen a mask for months (but we haven’t had any cases here for over a year). Complacency is what will get us.

It's still required on public transport, users, taxis etc here. My line during peak hour is pretty compliant - I would say only about 1 in 10 or 15 aren't wearing a mask, even if some apparently think they breathe through their chin. I had to take a different line the other day though and it was about 1 in 2. At least that explained why that LGA had so many cases last time - and they'll all be the first to whinge if/when we lock down again, sigh.

There's still a lot of masks being worn in my area in spaces where it's not enforced, certainly more than I saw in the other LGA. 

I can't get over people whinging that we have cases in hotel quarantine. It's been over 12 months, how do you not understand the term "incubation period" yet?

[Smash!]

Holy Fuck. Switzerland is massively easing restrictions at the beginning of the 3rd wave (with the British variant). Every country around us discusses new restrictions but in Switzerland science doesn‘t count. Oh and we are VERY slow with vaccination. I‘m speechless and very anxious.

[OHFL2009]

My husband was supposed to get the J&J this weekend, but since that's paused, he was going to get the Moderna. But he has to travel for work 2 days after the date for the second shot, and he's worried that if he gets a fever from the second shot, and they are doing temperature checks at the airport, he won't be allowed to board his flight. Ugh. Now he's trying to find the Pfizer so he would have a week between the shot and the travel, but Pfizer seems a lot less common here than Moderna. I was really glad he was going to get the J&J more than two weeks before his flight (his first in over a year) but hopefully he can get at least get the shots before he has to go, even if it isn't up to full immunity. 

[Alisamer]

We have a new employee at work, an older lady (heh, I'm probably an older lady to some people now!), who is ready for everything to open up and be back to normal but reticent about the vaccine because it was developed so fast.

I gave her my "the technology has been around for decades and it's just now they had the right virus and funding to finalize things" plus "my uncle was in the Pfizer trial and had his seven months ago and all is fine" and "the only way things will open up is for as many people to get vaccinated as possible" with a side of "the bad side effects are extremely rare - and I mean anything has possible effects, you can eat a peanut in public and kill someone potentially" pep talk. Along with three recommendations of places to get the vaccine. 

I mean really. People are resisting the vaccine because a tiny handful of people died after getting it. These are usually the same people claiming that non-Covid deaths are being listed as Covid. No insight whatsoever that deaths after the vaccine might not actually be related to the vaccine.

And really? I hate to sound callous - but I'd rather take the slight risk of a handful of people dying from the vaccine (which would actually be from reactions to something IN the vaccine, most likely) than continue on with over half a million people dead of Covid. 

Half a million is a huge amount of people. HUGE. More than the population of many cities. The number of deaths that might possibly be attributed to the vaccine as far as I know can be counted on your hands. 

This is a "good of the many" situation, IMO.

When I was leaving to get my second shot my boss made a joke that he'd see me on Monday unless it killed me, and then he'd go on TV talking about what a great worker I was. I told him sure! In the extremely rare chance it kills me, get as much publicity for the company as you can! I'd rather die from the vaccine than risk spreading Covid to other people - I want to travel again, and hug my friends.

Spoiler: It didn't kill me. It's been a week. Arm is barely even tender anymore where the shot was! One more week and I'll officially be "fully vaccinated" and I'm going back to the gym. Yay!

[PreciousPantsofDoom]

It's looking like I'll get vaccinated sometime soon. Yesterday two things happened: they opened up registration to my age group (that's not a booking, just that registering gives you a  code and means you are in the system to be contacted when it's your turn) and the School Board finally got the go ahead to vaccinate staff as part of the Essential workers program.

I kind of hope I get a booking through the general age group system before the School Board gets its act together. The School Board one will be the Astra Zeneca most likely. The Gov. had paused that program  while looking into the blood clots issue, but has now decided its ok. I'm feeling a bit nervous about that, but will do AZ if I have to. The regular age group related one would likely be Moderna or Phizer, which I have no qualms about. I half thought about refusing the AZ if it comes up first and waiting for the other, but I'm in schools all the time and with the increase in variants here, I need a vaccine asap. 

The School Board was its usual idiot self in that the Superintendent's email talked about how the vaccine would be distributed at job sites after we are notified by our job site administrator. No mention of how it would work for any of the employees who are not connected to a particular job site or administrator (substitute teachers, Itinerant positions etc.)

I emailed back and got a reply that they were working on figuring out how to notify and where to vaccinate all the unattached staff members. . Yeah? Good, but I don't see why they couldn't have said that in the first place. Given that they have consistently forgotten to communicate essential things to subs throughout the Pandemic, not even mentioning that you are planning for how to vaccinate that group just ramps up the anxiety that we have been forgotten again. Why do so many things do such poor job with communication? Argh. 

Anyway, vaccine on the horizon for me, yay! 

[NotQuiteMotY]

4 hours ago, Alisamer said:

And really? I hate to sound callous - but I'd rather take the slight risk of a handful of people dying from the vaccine (which would actually be from reactions to something IN the vaccine, most likely) than continue on with over half a million people dead of Covid.

I keep wondering- because of the age group/sex of those affected- if they were on the combination pill, since that predisposes you to blood clots anyway. (Obligatory I-am-not-a-scientist comment here.)

So this morning I looked at these posts and was very, very jealous of those getting their shots... and then I left here and got an appointment scheduled!! I'm so hoping nothing goes wrong with it, I DO NOT want to have to keep waiting!

[adidas]

6 hours ago, Alisamer said:

And really? I hate to sound callous - but I'd rather take the slight risk of a handful of people dying from the vaccine (which would actually be from reactions to something IN the vaccine, most likely) than continue on with over half a million people dead of Covid. 

Statistics are so different from place to place though,  and while I agree with you that the risk is tiny wrt clots - this is why the Australian Government is being so cautious. This year in total we have had one person die from Covid, but in the past month three have developed clots associated with the vaccine (two have died). The Govt says that because we are in a good position re the virus, we can afford to take our time with the vaccine rollout. Many citizens disagree, even though the risks associated with vaccination are much higher than the Covid risk for us.

[Ozlsn]

13 hours ago, Alisamer said:

People are resisting the vaccine because a tiny handful of people died after getting it

Or in the case of the person I was somewhat frustratedly discussing this with at Easter "They haven't tested it in combination with all the drugs yet". Well no, not every conceivable combination but given at that stage they'd given 11 million doses in the UK I'm pretty sure at least some would have been on the same bog standard drug combinations this person was on.

6 hours ago, adidas said:

The Govt says that because we are in a good position re the virus, we can afford to take our time with the vaccine rollout

Which yes, but also leaves us with locked down borders, mandatory quarantines and break outs until we can vaccinate sufficiently. I would be less frustrated if the front line workers were all vaccinated at least, but they haven't even covered all of them yet. 

8 hours ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

keep wondering- because of the age group/sex of those affected- if they were on the combination pill, since that predisposes you to blood clots anyway. (Obligatory I-am-not-a-scientist comment here.)

Possible, but confounded a lot by healthcare workers trending female and younger - so it's hard to say whether you'd see the same thing across the population. More data, as always, would be good to have. 

[OHFL2009]

8 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Possible, but confounded a lot by healthcare workers trending female and younger - so it's hard to say whether you'd see the same thing across the population. More data, as always, would be good to have. 

Where I am, it seems like very few of the healthcare workers received the J&J. It wasn't authorized here until after a lot of the healthcare workers had already received the Moderna or Pfizer since they were one of the first groups eligible. But it would be interesting to see the demographics on everyone who received it vs. those who developed the clots. 

[Alisamer]

16 hours ago, adidas said:

Statistics are so different from place to place though,  and while I agree with you that the risk is tiny wrt clots - this is why the Australian Government is being so cautious. This year in total we have had one person die from Covid, but in the past month three have developed clots associated with the vaccine (two have died). The Govt says that because we are in a good position re the virus, we can afford to take our time with the vaccine rollout. Many citizens disagree, even though the risks associated with vaccination are much higher than the Covid risk for us.

I can see that, and it makes sense. You guys have done an amazing job IMO compared to the US. I think here, though, where the risk of Covid is way, way, way higher than the risk of vaccine injury (and Covid cases seem to be surging again) I think it's a pretty ridiculous reason not to get the vaccine unless the person is predisposed or at-risk of clotting already.

And isn't clotting one of the things Covid causes?

It's like a loaded six-shot revolver (Covid) and a single shot pistol (vaccine) - either could kill you. They could miss, of course, and in Australia it seems they most likely will. There, you're running from them with a head start through a forest with plenty of trees to hide behind. Here in most of the US? You're standing still against a wall six paces from them, more or less. I'd personally choose the single shot pistol and hope they either miss or hit somewhere non-fatal.

That seems like a very American metaphor. Sorry!

[clueliss]

 Moderna dose 2 is in my arm.

[adidas]

@Alisamer it’s a really great analogy and I totally agree with you.

Yesterday our chief medical officer held a press conference and said that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine outweigh the risk of potential blood clots, and that people who contract COVID-19 are much more likely to develop blood clots than from the vaccine. He also said that Australia is vulnerable to more and serious outbreaks, so we need to not delay and to get everyone vaccinated.

[Ozlsn]

8 hours ago, Alisamer said:

can see that, and it makes sense. You guys have done an amazing job IMO compared to the US. I think here, though, where the risk of Covid is way, way, way higher than the risk of vaccine injury (and Covid cases seem to be surging again) I think it's a pretty ridiculous reason not to get the vaccine unless the person is predisposed or at-risk of clotting already.

And isn't clotting one of the things Covid causes?

Totally agree. The risk of getting a cerebral blood clot is about 8-10 times higher from infection than from the vaccine. The risk-benefit analysis here is different from the US - in the US the risk of getting the virus and therefore the increased risk of clotting (plus the other factors that can make covid lethal) is a lot higher than it currently is here... unless you are a frontline worker who is more likely to actually come in contact with the virus, or are at high risk if there is another breakout. So those groups are still being vaccinated with the Astra-zeneca vaccine, or Pfizer if it is available and/or they have other known risk factors. 

10 hours ago, OHFL2009 said:

Where I am, it seems like very few of the healthcare workers received the J&J. It wasn't authorized here until after a lot of the healthcare workers had already received the Moderna or Pfizer since they were one of the first groups eligible. But it would be interesting to see the demographics on everyone who received it vs. those who developed the clots. 

Agreed - here we are pretty much only vaccinating with Astra-zeneca (don't have much Pfizer, didn't buy the other two... don't ask), and the groups that have received/are receiving it it so far are front line workers, high risk groups and healthcare workers. 

The European medicines agency statement says "The Committee’s experts looked in extreme detail at records of DIC and CVST reported from Member States, 9 of which resulted in death. Most of these occurred in people under 55 and the majority were women." It will be interesting to see when they do more analysis what else comes up as increasing risk - there has been research into different blood clotting factors which are involved in patients who develop clots during covid-19 infection, and people with sickle cell anemia may be at higher risk, but overall it seems that the clotting risk might be being driven by immune system factors.

1 hour ago, adidas said:

He also said that Australia is vulnerable to more and serious outbreaks, so we need to not delay and to get everyone vaccinated.

ZOMG yes. I'm glad they've sent some doses to PNG as the crisis there is extreme, but I'd really like to be in the position of being able to not worry that there's undetected community spread about to explode again.

[indianabones]

I just got my second Moderna shot! It's only been four hours but my arm is pretty sore. I'm going to be taking it easy tomorrow- nothing is on my schedule in case I have side effects.

I just got accepted into my first choice university, and they require proof of MMR immunization. My parents don't have any of my immunization records so I figured I would just get the shot again at my healthcare center on Monday. Of course, yesterday morning I woke up to a slightly-frantic sounding phone call from my doctor telling me that no, I cannot get an MMR vaccine three days after a COVID vaccine. ?

I didn't want to wait two weeks to confirm my enrollment at my university so I've been making all these phone calls to the various pediatricians I saw as a child. It took some effort, but as of today I have my comprehensive vaccine history! And now I know that I got all three gardasil shots (I thought I'd only had one or two) which is kind of a relief.

I just booked a trip to the Greek islands for June, because they're allowing vaccinated travelers in and I had $800 in airline credit that I need to use this year. The residents of the islands I'm going to will be all vaccinated by then, too. I'm excited! I'll probably end up getting my hepatitis vaccines since the CDC recommends it for travel to there...

[FloraKitty35]

I made the arrangements for my Mother to get her 1st vaccine in Jan. & I was able to get her the second shot in Feb. She didn't have any side of effects from the 1st shot, but she did have a reaction the day after the 2nd one.  (She had the Pfizer vaccine.)

I got my 1st dose a week ago today (Pfizer) & I'm scheduled for my 2nd dose 5/7. I did get chills and felt fatigued a couple after my 1st dose, but I still plan on getting my 2nd dose.

 

[Dandruff]

I took a mask-free walk yesterday.  Got away from crowds before taking it off, continued to be alert and avoided getting close to others...and it was lovely.