Coronavirus Update From New York City: November 18, 2021 (Booster Shot Edition)

As readers can tell from the title of my Coronavirus update post tonight, I got my booster shot in the past week!

Last Friday, I got my booster vaccine shot. I was eligible for the booster because: a) it had been over six months since I got my second shot and b) my body mass index is such that I was eligible for it.

I was originally caught a little off guard by the fact that the booster shots being given out at my vaccine site were Pfizer. I was caught off guard because I thought I had decided to get a Moderna booster shot (matching with the first two vaccine shots I got, which were Moderna), yet here I was, seeing that the booster shots they were giving were for the Pfizer vaccine.

However, while I was waiting on line, I did a little bit of research about mixing and matching vaccines so that your first two shots were from one vaccine but your booster was from another vaccine. I reminded myself that both the Food and Drug Administration[1] and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[2] allow for this mixing and matching–meaning that it is safe to mix and match as I ended up doing (getting the first two shots from the Moderna vaccine and my booster from the Pfizer vaccine). Upon this bit of research, I felt at ease, and realized that I was just fine getting my booster from the Pfizer vaccine, even though my first two shots were from the Moderna vaccine.

So, I got my booster shot, and interestingly, the side effects as a whole weren’t quite as bad as they were after I got my second Moderna shot last April. I ran a fever that approached 100F, had an absolutely pounding headache for a good portion of the day last Saturday, fatigue, a moderately sore arm, and a loss of appetite. In contrast, with my second shot in late April, all these side effects I had last weekend were as bad or worse, and additionally I had chills (something that I didn’t have last weekend). Still, I would take the side effects of the booster and the second shot combined over not taking a vaccine and getting the virus.

What I hope I’m conveying in tonight’s post is that: a) getting a booster is safe and b) mixing and matching for your booster is also safe. I could be wrong, but the fact that you can mix and match is just oh so important in places where there’s only one particular type of vaccine that people have easy access to, and that type is different from what they had access to for their first two shots.

So, I hope that people get their booster shots when they are eligible! With COVID on the rise in many parts of the United States again, we want to give ourselves as much protection from the virus as we possibly could, and the booster is something that can help protect us from the virus.

So, that is it for now. I wanted to focus on my experiences with getting the vaccine booster shot. I hope others share their experiences of getting the booster.

Also, as a little side note, I do not plan on publishing a Coronavirus update post next Thursday, which is Thanksgiving. In fact, I don’t plan on publishing any posts during the week of Thanksgiving so that I can give myself a little rest. And when I get back to publishing blog posts after Thanksgiving, I’m planning to do my COVID update posts at a rate of about once a month, instead of once a week, since there isn’t a lot of news for me to report on locally or personally on the pandemic front.

---

[1] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-takes-additional-actions-use-booster-dose-covid-19-vaccines

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html