Today I Got Shot… Again!

Today I got shot… i.e., vaccinated against COVID-19… again.

Yes, I Am a Serial Vaccinee

By my count, and according to the state vaccine registry, this is my 9th COVID-19 vaccination. You might, only slightly unreasonably, wonder “Why so many times?” Surely, COVID-19 has gone away, right?

No, COVID-19 has most definitely not gone away! Consider the data shown here, from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative ^[1]:

• The horizontal axis is just time, starting in 2020-Jan-01, just when the pandemic started.
• The vertical axes on the left and right are slightly different, but they both amount to the number of infections as calculated by a couple methods.

Now, let’s see what this graph tells us:

• See the little peak all the way over at the left, in the sprint of 2020? That was the start of the pandemic. Remember how scared we all were then? Hold that thought.
• See the peak at the right, for this last summer? See how much higher it is than the initial pandemic peak? See how it grinds on much longer? That’s the state of COVID-19 today, with more infections over longer periods of time.
• See the purple part at the furthest right, where it’s rising higher than the initial peak? That’s what’s happening now (and predicted for the next couple months).

What part of that plot says to you that COVID-19 has “gone away”? None of it, that’s what.

COVID-19 has not gone away. If anything, it is worse now than at the beginning of the pandemic. Fortunately, most people have some degree of resistance from prior vaccination or infection.

So we’re not dying quite as often… but we are getting infected.

Now, listen to this. Look at me. This is important: every time you get COVID-19, you are doing damage to your organs and your immune system, and putting yourself at increasing risk of Long COVID. Speaking as someone with an official diagnosis of Long COVID brain fog from just one infection, trust me that Long COVID is not something you want.

Not at all.

This is very bad, and you should take whatever actions you reasonably can to avoid it. For now, that includes getting a booster this fall. It might elevate to masking again this winter.

Fall Vaccinations

So, here we are. Last fall it was vaccines for COVID-19, flu and RSV. RSV is not (yet) an annual vaccine, so no need to repeat that. Last spring it was got a COVID-19 booster. This fall, it’s a COVID-19 booster and a flu shot.

Last summer, we live-blogged the FDA VRBPAC meeting at which the strains in the virus were decided. ^[2] The VRBPAC recommended a monovalent vaccine on the JN.1 strain, but the FDA afterwards overruled them and chose the more current KP.2 strain.

This attempt to get ahead of the SARS-CoV2 virus was a good idea, though now the virus has moved on to other strains, fortunately closely related. The CDC “nowcast” of viral strains ^[3], shown here, says that among the big movers are KP.1, KP.2, KP.3, KP.2.3, and KP.3.1.1. (Also the LB.1 strain, about which I know nothing.) So it’s reassuring that the vaccine is focused on a strain closely related to those circulating.

Still, an article from Yale Medicine ^[4] informs us that the XEC subvariant of Omicron is growing as of the beginning of October. It accounts for 5.7% of infections in the US for now. It’s concerning because it rapidly out-competed other strains in Europe this summer.

XEC appears to be a combination rearrangement of KP.3.3 and KS.1.1. Consulting infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Roberts, the article tells us:

But the newly updated Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, designed to target KP.2 (the dominant COVID strain this past spring), and the latest Novavax vaccine that targets an earlier strain — JN.1 — should also provide protection against XEC, he adds.

“Even though XEC is recombinant, it’s composed of two Omicron subvariants that were expected to be addressed by the updated vaccines,” Dr. Roberts says. “From that standpoint, although this new variant might diminish the immunity the vaccines provide by a little bit, I’m optimistic that we’re still going to have some degree of protection from both recent infections and updated vaccines.”
…
“I always recommend getting vaccinated by October at the latest, so you’ll have peak immunity during the holidays, when there’s a lot of travel and mingling with family, often indoors where the virus can spread more easily.”
…
If you do test positive for COVID, antivirals such as Paxlovid are recommended.

So the cross-immunity between strains should be pretty good, and here at Château Weekend we’re all in for that.

So here we are, mid-October, getting boosted.

As evidence, we present this picture of our left dorsal manipulator tentacle (a.k.a. “my flabby arm” complete with old-man hair) being injected with the Moderna 2024-2025 booster by a very gentle, pleasant, and agreeable pharmacist.

She also gave me the high-dose flu vaccine for seniors – the one you youngsters are not yet strong enough to take! – in the other arm. I’ve always done it that way, COVID-19 in the left & flu in the right, on the theory that the lymph nodes on the left and right are each becoming specialists for a disease. Probably superstition, of course! But if it makes me get vaccinated, at least it’s a useful superstition.

The Weekend Editrix will be similarly vaccinated next week, due to her work meeting schedule. (Yes, she’s now retired from her work. But her replacement then went out on disability, so they called her back. Alas, they called her back to her work, but not her pay, because charitable non-profits are like that, always asking for pro bono work.)

The Weekend Conclusion

The Weekend Publisher (in the seat of the chair) and Assistant Weekend Publisher (on the back of the chair) are shown (non-)reacting here. Reassured that their humans are behaving responsibly and will thus likely keep the stream of brushings and cat food coming, they have moved on to other matters. In this case, the important matter of test piloting some new chairs in the living room. (Initial feedback is that they seem to have pronounced themselves satisfied.)

Renewed immunity for the winter season and holidays is good. Go thou and do likewise! You should live, and not die. Stand by for an update tomorrow on the side effects, anticipated to be mild.

Now… if only in the US we could get political immunity against Trump and Republican fascism… then I would begin to hope tenatively for an American future again.

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.)

Addendum 2024-Oct-17: The Usual Suspects

Side effects are about as expected: 0.5°C fever, very tired, achy muscles and joints, sore shoulders. (Though, to be fair: some of the achy muscles are from a physical therapy appointment yesterday to deal with an injury.)

Overall, quite tolerable. Happy to see my innate immune system yapping like a guard dog, while my acquired immune system meditates upon the spike protein and polishes its grenade launcher. (Well, antibody launcher. But that’s sorta like a grenade, immunologically speaking?)

All is well, it seems.

Also, a neologism: fluid vaccine = flu + COVID vaccine. That is all.

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Notes & References

1: Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative, “Dashboard for COVID-19 Forecasting Model”, Pandemic Mitigation Collaboration web site, downloaded 2024-Oct-16. ↩

2: Weekend Editor, “FDA VRBPAC: COVID-19 Vaccine Composition for Fall 2024”, Some Weekend Reading blog, 2024-Jun-05. ↩

3: CDC Staff, “COVID-19 Variant Update”, CDC and IDSA web site, downloaded 2024-Oct-16. ↩

4: K Katella, “3 Things to Know About XEC, the Latest COVID Strain”, Yale Medicine, 2024-Oct-01.

NB: Yale Medicine is not itself the Medical School of Yale University. It is, however, the departmental clinical practice for Yale Med School. ↩