[set fair (OP)]

Still sitting on the fence. After Medcram I thought I would then not so sure on listening to Paul Offit.

[alancalverd]

The Boss has had hers, I'm due next week. No worries.

[Janus]

My wife had hers last week, and I'm scheduled for next week.

[paul cotter]

I skipped the second booster as I was having crazy heart rhythm disturbances, even from the first shot. These erratic beats seemed to worsen with each subsequent shot, though I had no other symptoms. Now having had covid over the summer which was much worse than I had expected and not something I ever want to repeat, I am not sure what to do. It a question of balancing risks and I reckon I will go for the booster, as soon as I have discussed it with my gp.

[evan_au]

I'll probably have the BA5 booster, once it becomes readily available in Australia - which might take another month or two.

[evan_au]

Autumn is still 6 months away for me - by then different variants will probably be circulating...

[set fair (OP)]

I've come round to the opinion that, If you wanted the enhanced immunity from circulating antibodies, then you would probably have to boost every 3 months. If you are going to rely on immune memory, then you can probably wait a few years for your 4th shot. There's no science behind getting boosted every 6 or 12 months.

[evan_au]

The 4 "common cold" coronaviruses come back about every 2 years.
- So while people are still dying from COVID variants, regular boosters will still probably be necessary

It appears that cases of Omicron variants BQ1/BQ1.1 and BXX are rapidly increasing in various parts of the world.
- As B.4/B.5 have now infected the most pro-transmission part of the population, these new, immune-evasive variants can take over.

[Bored chemist]

I had mine a few weeks ago.

[Kryptid]

Had mine two weeks ago. It made me feel a little off for a day, but not as bad as my second dose did.

[paul cotter]

After three of the Pfizer shots, all of which produced very erratic heart rhythms, I decided to skip my booster and wait for the novavax. I received the novavax this day last week and as regards side effects( zero ), I could just as easily have been injected with water. Today, however, I have a vague feeling of infection, muscle tenderness and slight headache. Maybe totally unconnected.

[alancalverd]

Stiff shoulder a few hours after Sanofi,  fully functional in 2 days. Interesting note from PC about cardiac effect of Pfizer - I have to see a cardiologist in a couple of weeks and will discuss with him as all my previous shorts were Pfizer.

[paul cotter]

Alan, have you any symptoms suggestive of cardiac effects? I just had crazy erratic rhythm, no pain, breathlessness or anything else pointing to cardiac problems. This disturbance was intermittent and sure enough when subjected to an ecg everything was normal( my gp probably thinks i'm a hypochondriac ). I should also note that my heart rhythm has always been a bit erratic.

[alancalverd]

I had an ecg anomaly (ectopic ventricular contraction) a few months ago but haven't had time to get it investigated. Annoying because it suspended my flying licence, the day after we put a new engine in the old Cessna! More later, I hope....

[paul cotter]

Ventricular ectopics are extremely common and almost always harmless. I get them every day and if they become bothersome I take 20mg propranolol. If there is damage to the heart they can be more serious, sometimes leading to ventricular fibrillation. They can be treated with medication or radio frequency ablation of the focus of automaticity.

[evan_au]

It's getting into winter here, and it is 7 months after I had COVID, so today I had the Pfizer Bivalent Wuhan+Omicron BA.4/5 vaccine. Apparently, this also provides some protection against BQ.1.1 and XBB.1 subvariants.
- I'm not experiencing any side-effects yet...
- The side-effect profile is similar to the original Pfizer Wuhan vaccine, according to the Australian regulator:
https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-recommendations-on-use-of-the-pfizer-bivalent-originalomicron-ba45-covid-19-vaccine

On current statistics, immunity starts to wane after 3 months; after around 6 months, vaccine protection against death has dropped from 90% to around 50%.
- Although a very novel variant (eg jumping back from an animal host) could disrupt this at any time!

[set fair (OP)]

https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/10/6/ofad209/7131292?login=false
relevant timing of variants in the US
BA 5 most prevelant until Nov 10th bivalent vaccine protection 29%
BQ most prevalent Nov 11th to Jan 8th - bivalent vaccine protection 20%
XBB most prevalent Jan 9th to present - bivalent vaccine protection 4%

Protection against serious disease continues but, if there is evidence that boosters significantly improve in this respect then I haven't seen it.

One of the problems with variant chasing, is that natural selection works to favour variants resistant to the antibodies to the current variant. So by the time we take the XBB vaccine we can expect the circulating variants to be those specifically evolved to evade XBB antibodies. In fact it would not be surprising if such varriants started blooming just as the new vaccines are being rolled out. If that did happen and the varriants were immune to the new vaccine induced antibodies, we might see a signal of a booster's effect on T-cell immunity.