Saturday is laying back and taking it easy...and a bit more good news from the trenchs?

[shadowkat]

Apparently, if you got the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine in 2024, you don't need to get it again in 2025 - since it is the same one. (I found this out when I went to the pharmacy this morning to get said vaccine.)

Pharmacist: Wait a minute, when was your last COVID Vaccine?
ME: January 2024?
Pharmacist: You don't need another one.
Me: Uh...it was in January of last year?
Pharmacist: We're using the same vaccine. It's not changed.
Me: Okay, fine with me - I don't see the point of getting it - if I don't need it.

I didn't realize it hadn't been updated. It may not be. Honestly, who knows?

I was meeting Wales at the pharmacy, and tried to text her to meet me at my apartment or call it a day, since it was drizzling and cold, and altogether crappy outdoors - but alas, she was bound and determined.
We did brunch at Hamilton's, and she gave a nice card, and the book entitled James by Percival Everett which she got from McNally's bookstore near the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. Wales was wearing a cool t-shirt (long sleeved) in support of the Ukraine, and mailed five postcards requesting people in Wisconsin vote for the election regarding the Judge. She told me that to date all the liberal candidates she has sponsored have won. She learned how via Indivisible. So she's five for five at the moment.

Comments

[sonia]

The immune response to the vaccine wanes after about 6 months, so getting a booster is useful even if it’s the same formulation. I’m surprised the pharmacist dissuaded you!

[shadowkat]

They won't give you the same vaccine or booster twice. Each one you get is a different vaccine. I don't know why exactly. If I was to hazard a guess - I think it's similar to the flu shot? And a different strain?

But they dissuade, they refused. They aren't permitted to give the 2024-2025 shot to people twice. Just one per person. Unless you're over 65, then you can get a second shot six months apart.

At any rate - I'm far from under vaccinated. I've had five shots to date. Plus the Flu this year.
And I still got COVID in August, albeit mild for the most part. (It doesn't prevent COVID, any more than the Flu shot prevents the Flu, it just makes it a milder case or less likely.)

[sonia]

Interesting, I hadn’t realized they were limiting it in that way. Sorry to hear you came down with Covid anyway!

I recently got the new Novavax shot. I heard they have a batch that expires at the end of March in pharmacies, so I signed myself up and they didn’t give me any trouble. Way fewer side effects than Moderna, too.