FDA now allows 2nd bivalent COVID booster for over 65, should I get it?

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

Never been sick, not even a sniffle for over 3 years, never had any bad reactions to any of the previous, all Moderna.

It's been over 6 months since last bivalent booster dose, am deciding whether to get now, not wait till fall

What to do ....

[riverbendviewgal]

1. Yes!

I did

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. You should definitely get it! Why wait and risk getting sick? Get it now, get protected sooner! ♥

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I understand.

I'm 74. The healthiest person I know. Never get sick. Don't bother with the flu vaccine. Last time I had flu was maybe 1974. I just don't get stuff. That said, I have gotten the Covid vaccine and a booster. I've been waffling on the next one, but I probably should get it.

I honestly think that the most important thing to take from the whole Covid thing is how variable individual immune systems are.

[hippywife]

5. It's also not just about ourselves,

it's about protecting those who can't take it, or are immuno-suppressed and for whom the vaccine doesn't work.

[Dorian Gray]

17. If we want to protect those people

then the best thing to do is get boosted when caseloads are increasing. (We are not talking about an unvaccinated person here. It's about boosting, and the immediate benefit of the booster is limited, so I would think that the best time to do it would be when caseloads are going up, for maximum benefit to society.)

[Elessar Zappa]

14. Things can happen though.

My great aunt was like you, she hadn’t really been sick in her entire life but finally at the age of 77 she caught the flu and ended up dying from complications. You’ll likely continue to be healthy but you never know.

[Ms. Toad]

4. You should definitely get it

There is far less public protection now than since the beginning of the pandemic - so you need to protect yourself.

Wheter to get it now or in the fall is an interesting question. I'm getting mine in about 2 weeks, since I'm traveling and I want maximum protection. Aside from that - summer is the safest time for me. I'm not working. I mask aside from a few calculated risks. So I'm less likely to get it in the fall - and aside from traveling, it would make sense to save the immunity boost for the start of the fall semester.

Figure out your risks and when you are most likely to need an immunity boost. Don't rely on not having caught it. Two of my professors believed themselves to be immune . . . they weren't.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

6. Yes, wait till a new strain formulation, that was my thinking, still giving same variant booster

It covers the ancestral strain of Covid and variants BA.4 and BA.5, The new variant is XBB1.5 which they say now is dominant strain, 88% of US infections.


Virtually no data saying if current bivalent even protects against it

Oh well, who you gonna believe, I haven't had a flu shot for over 20 years and I've survived and never got the flu.

[Ms. Toad]

24. COVID is not the flu

I contracted COVID 2 weeks after my next-to-last booster (so I was at maximum protection). The bout with COVID was light - equivalent to the mildest cold I've had. Then I got long COVID (pancreatitis (a life-threatening condition) + a whole host of GI symptoms which continue 11 months later)

The immunity boost (for prevention of disease) is very brief. What it protects well against is severity of disease. (It doesn't protect nearly as well against long COVID, but it does provide some protection.)

FWIW - I haven't ever had a flu shot and, for the time being, I don't intend to get one. But I've gotten all but two COVID vaccines/boosters within 24 hours of being eligible. COVID is not the flu - we have virtually no idea what the long-term consequences of getting it are. We do know that 59% of low-risk people who contract COVID have organ damage at one year, according to the most comprehensive long-term study I've seen.

FWIW#2 -

The new booster shots are bivalent, meaning they are designed to protect against both the original strain and the BA.5 omicron subvariant that caused most infections over the summer. The latest data shows that the booster protects people from getting sick with XBB.1.5 about as well as it did against BA.5.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/01/25/covid-bivalent-booster-xbb15-infections/

[flamingdem]

26. Curious to know why you don't get the flu vaccine?

I have never done so either but might start this fall.

[Ms. Toad]

28. I have immune system irregularities

One autoimmune disorder, and some acquired ones via COVID. Most flu vaccines includ an adjuvant, which deliberately ramps up the immune reaction to the vaccine in order to build immunity. I don't really want my immune system (which is already attacking my body) any more ramped up.

I don't get the flu often, maybe some natural immunity, maybe the precautions I take, or some combination. The last time I had the flu was sometime in the early 2000s. It's miserable, but not life threatening. I am cautious all the time about touching surfaces (one of the main ways flu is spread), and I never go to work/out when I am actively ill so I am less likely than most to spread it.

Bottom line is that when the personal risk of the flu is greater than the risk of making my immune system mad (or I start getting the flu on a more than once every 2 decades basis) I will start getting the vaccine. Ironically one of the COVID acquired immune irregularities makes respiratory infections more frequent and more severe - so that may change the balance.

I'm not inherently opposed to getting it - but both for me and my daughter (with two autoimmune disorders) it's a matter of balancing the risks.

[flamingdem]

29. Thanks so much for that

Appreciated because I also developed an autoimmune hair disorder - alopecia areata - possibly due to covid or even possibly due to having the flu and then getting the covid vaccine.

My theory is that my antibodies were high from getting a case of the flu and two monts later a booster for covid.

Now you have me thinking to be careful if the flu vaccine hypes up my immune system.

My hair is finally growing back!

[Ms. Toad]

30. If you go to the CDC website, you should be able to get information about the current flu shots

(they vary from year to year - some require adjuvants across the board, some only for the post-65 version).

I can't find the exact list quickly, but here is the generic link: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/different-flu-vaccines.htm

Found it https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/acip/2022-2023/acip-table.htm

Looks like this year only the one for the 65+ population includes adjuvants. (Some years it has been nearly all of them.)

[flamingdem]

32. I thought about getting the under 65 last year

but they won't give it to you unless they run out of the over 65 or you're under 65.

If it's around 50% preventative I remember thinking to give it a miss.

The main reason I wanted it is if I got Covid at the same time.

[Ms. Toad]

33. It hasn't been 50% effective since around 2013.

Forgot to mention that piece of the reasoning.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html

(I found and added the link to the table of what each vaccine contains to my last post)

[viva la]

7. I got it the first week

No problems.

Two friends who had never gotten Covid got it last month, so I decided to up my immunity.

[progree]

11. My sister and her husband never got Covid ... until February. So it's still around. They spent

a few days in the hospital, so it wasn't just the sniffles. They are both elderly.

I believe they've been faithful all along in getting their vaxxes and boosts.

[PortTack]

8. Yes! At Xmas last year. I was at my daughter's home. There were 6 of us. 3 who's covid vaccines

We’re not as current we’re ill with it. The 3 of us with very current boosters did not get sick. Regardless of my nasty reactions to the vaccine, I’ve had my second bivalent booster. And, when it comes time for another, I’ll stick my finger in the light socket… again!

Even if you have a reaction it’s so much better, safer than the disease

[Rhiannon12866]

9. I'm planning on it as soon as I'm eligible, already got the first one (my fifth Moderna shot)

[KY_EnviroGuy]

12. I'm precisely where you are, Rhiannon.

Just got my first Moderna bivalent booster last week, along with pneumonia and shingles the same time. Damn, was my arm sore but had few side effects other than a day of feeling very tired, and the soreness was from either flu or shingles vax.

How long must we wait for the second bivalent? I'm thinking of getting my flu shot and second bivalent COVID this fall, especially since I fooled around and skipped my flue shot last fall.

KY

[Rhiannon12866]

34. Yikes! You got them all at once?!

I got my Shingles shot just before and during the pandemic. And I got my pneumonia shot at the doctor's office at the same time I got my flu shot, one in each arm. My left arm was sore forever, but I don't know which one it was, won't do that again! Not to mention, I got the flu anyway! And I think it's 4 months before you can get a second bivalent, but I didn't know to ask at the time, I learned about that here. Since my vaccine card is getting pretty full, I did ask the pharmacist how may more there might be, but she didn't have an answer... I might wait until fall, too.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

35. Yea, I was a spur of the moment decision.

I have to travel across the county to get to a drug store where I can get Moderna shots and when I arrived for my appointment, I asked for a review of my other vaccinations. When I got my first shingles shot years ago, I was still traveling and never got the required second shot, so I started over and they felt it wise to renew my pneumonia. So, in typical boy-style, I said "what the hell, let's git-er-done.".......

In hind-sight, I should have just got the COVID booster as planned and I could have gotten the other two later at my drug store close to home. That way, If I had bad side-effects, I would know what caused it. Thank goodness, I didn't have any severe reactions. One of the two in my right arm did make that area sore for about a week.

Although I carry a vaxx record card in my wallet, it has become a mess. I wish the drug stores could print out a wallet-size current vaxx record card for customers to carry, especially to present in case of medical emergency.

KY.........

[progree]

10. I got my FIRST bivalent booster yesterday. Yes, I know about how the strain it was targeting

Last edited Sat May 20, 2023, 09:01 AM - Edit history (2)

is barely around anymore. But I believe that all the Covid vaccines help somewhat even now. I keep reading that the vaccinated and boosted get far fewer hospitalizations and deaths in the past few months and past year than the non-vaccinated and vaccinated but non-boosted. Since most of those vaccinated and boosted have NOT had the bivalent vaccine, that tells me that the vaccine doesn't have to be targeted to a predominant strain in order to reduce hospitalization and death risk by multiples. There is a New York Times graph that shows the relative risks over time.

I also keep reading that there is a considerable fading of vaccination efficacies after a few months. Yeah, that kinda contradicts the first paragraph. But by itself it's a motivation to at last get another shot.

After that glorified song and dance, it is pretty amazing that I procrastinated for almost exactly a year after my previous (non-bivalent) booster until just yesterday. But I did. EDIT: It was exactly a year to the day! May 19, 2022 and May 19, 2023. I didn't know that until afterwards, the first one looked like 5/15/22 on my card, but no, it was 5/19/22.

Another motivating factor was Diane Feinstein's shingles ordeal (among other recent shingles stories). Rationally or not, I've always put the covid shot ahead of getting the Shingrix, and that was an absolute in my mind. So in order to get the train moving on the Shingrix, I had to get the Covid shot done and out of the way -- and then in a couple weeks plus who knows how much irrational procrastinating -- I will get Shingrix #1 (its a 2 shot thing about 4 months apart IIRC).

I am 71. I've never had Covid. I've been kind of slow to get my Covid shots but have gotten them all with a few months lag (well the bivalent was a several months lag). I'm very much isolated so have relatively little chance of catching or spreading it compared to the average person. But my odds aren't close enough to zero for me to feel comfortable. Especially considering long covid - I don't need brain fog and fatigue and worse at this stage of my life because there is noone to pick up the slack.

Then in 4 months from now (or 6 months or longer given how I procrastinate) I'll get Covid bivalent #2. Maybe they will target what is then a predominant strain with that one.

edited to add: Another motivating factor - my sister and her husband never got Covid ... until February, and spent a few days in the hospital. So it wasn't fun. They are elderly. I believe they have both been faithful in getting their vaxxes and boosts. So its still out there.

Corrected there were some "univalent" that should be "bivalent". Fixed.

Edited to add It's free and the time commitment is minor - so even if it improves one's odds a little bit, it's worth it.

[Walleye]

13. I got my sixth shot three weeks ago, haven't had Covid, went to a wedding last week still not sick

I have very little side effects from the shot, sore arm etc.

[ananda]

15. Got it. No problem.

Highly recommend.

[Dorian Gray]

16. My decision would be based on 2 factors:

How high is the caseload where you are?

How vulnerable are you to Covid?


I have been boosted with the bivalent last november. I got covid in January. It wasn't too bad.

I'm happy waiting until Fall to get another dose.

(And I'm back to living like normal. People I know have had covid in the last two months, though nobody I know has had it in the last three weeks. I've gone to the theater/restaurants/etc. like normal without masking in the last few weeks, too.)

At this point, I'm treating the threat of it like I would The Flu. When cases go up around me, I will mask and get vaccinated.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

19. County latest reports Covid levels decreased and community level remains low

I spend most time outside, away from packed crowds of strangers, so I don't feel I'm taking any undue risks, but yeah, it's been almost 9 months, I was always first in line to get shots when they became available. Sept to June is probably long enough, I will get it next couple of weeks

I'm 67 with BMI of 23.5, 168 lbs, 5ft 10.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

18. I got my second booster

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Why wouldn't you?

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

22. CDC is saying , "allowed" not, " recommended", they are letting us over 65 decide to take it

[MissMillie]

21. Ask your doctor.

Seriously.

The best place to get medical advice is from a medical profession that you trust.

[sinkingfeeling]

23. I got mine on May 2 before coming to Europe.

[MineralMan]

25. I got my second booster.

Both my wife and I finally caught COVID after three years and all of the vaccinations. Not a big deal, and we took Paxlovid and didn't really have any serious symptoms. That was in February. I just got my second Moderna booster a couple of weeks ago, four months after the last one.

[flamingdem]

27. Good resource for Covid news - Michael Osterholm MD

&t=2206s

[GoodRaisin]

31. I don't even have to think about it. I figure I am almost a sure bet to get

Covid without it - with all my family out in the community with no protection and then coming to see me. They stopped getting shots after their first two. They gave it to my ex a few weeks ago and she had not gotten out to get her bivalent. Plus almost nobody in the community wears masks anymore. I’ve had 4 shots including the first bivalent about 4 months ago and am going to get the next one too. No good reason not to.

[Maru Kitteh]

36. I'm in my mid-50s. I'm going to wait a bit for the new formulation.

Background: I'm an RN manager that has given the shot probably 900 - 1200ish times at least, but even though I have worked units for weeks on end where I was literally the only living being that didn't have Covid, I have never had it.

I was PCR Covid tested twice weekly every week for over two years.

Family members I lived with had it but I never got it. Based on this I think that regarding the virus as it has existed thus far, I may be one of the lucky persons with innate immunity. It makes some sense as I very VERY rarely contract common colds some of which are caused by other coronaviruses.

So - my situation is different than many. I no longer fear Covid for myself anymore neither do I fear giving it to others. I will of course continue to get vaccinated, but that's where I am. I would be eligible for the current booster owing to diabetes, but with my circumstances I think I'll wait for the next shot with the new variants.

[albacore]

37. There will be another new variation in the Fall. Do it. Get that 6th shot. nt

[liberal_mama]

38. I'm not getting any more unless it's vastly improved. I had severe side effects and a flare of my

autoimmune disease from the doses I've had. Almost everyone I know who was vaccinated got Covid. My vaccinated husband was severely ill. My 74 year old healthy dad had 5 doses and died of Covid 6 months ago. They need a better vaccine. I tried to get Novavax to see if that was better for me because I don't want any more mRNA side effects but no one offered it in my area, only Pfizer and Moderna! In the meantime, I will continue wearing my 3M N95 Aura respirator.