This Is Why I'm Getting the Updated Covid Shot Next Weekend - Primary Care Doc 🥼

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Daily Kos, Aug. 27, 2024. (407 Recs, 164 Cmts).

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The family tree of coronavirus misfits

I’m getting the new updated Covid vaccine as it rolls out this week. As a primary care doc, I don’t accept money, hot dogs, or even face to face time with drug representatives. And I know that all vaccines have potential side effects. But Science keeps watching for safety and efficacy, and the CDC, ACIP, and FDA weigh known risks against known benefits.

Bottom line: the CDC has advised everyone aged six months and older to receive the 2024-2025 Covid-19 vaccine - now if they haven’t been infected in the past 3-4 months. Last week the FDA approved the mRNA offerings from Pfizer and Moderna, while they are still reviewing the data from Novavax as of this writing. I hope you will find this post helpful when you need to make your own decision, or to engage with someone who is saying the CDC is totally corrupt, incompetent, or just a shill for pharma.

CDC and FDA are certainly not perfect, but consensus and policy derived through expertise is better than performative cherry picking from self-proclaimed, contrarian, individual experts online. Read on. Granted, this is an easier decision for me as I do not react strongly to these vaccines. Some people are knocked out for days, and a quite small number have absolutely experienced serious adverse reactions.

But for most people, the benefits outweigh the risks, hence the consensus guidelines and authorization.

Assuming I don’t contract Covid this week, I am currently scheduled to roll up my sleeve next weekend at a local Philly CVS to start priming my immune system against these newer variants. Although the mRNA vaccine we can get now is targeting the KP.2 variant, and the currently cresting wave has KP.3 and KP.3.1.1 making up 54% of infections (with KP.2.3 coming in 3rd at 14%, and KP.2 down to just 3%), the updated shots are still much closer to what’s going around than my last shot in the fall of 2023... https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/27/2265917/-This-is-why-I-m-getting-the-updated-Covid-shot-next-weekend-x1f91e