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Comment by tidenly | Hacker News Reader

I'm pro vax, but I'm hesitant to get my fourth.. I'm aware I may be an idiot here, but I just don't want to inject myself every six months for the foreseeable future. I've had covid two/three times now, and while the first time was hell, the other times I just had like a bad cold.

The jabs on the other hand completely knocked me on my ass. I get a kind of full body lethargy and aches that last for a couple of days.

Do I need to keep taking them? I'm honestly just holding out for a pill or spray form now..

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Are otherwise healthy people really getting boosters? I had covid in early 2021 before the vaccines. I got a first dose in March 2021, and a second dose in November, only because I needed it for a wedding. I haven’t gotten sick since.

I’m not an anti-vaxxer by any means, but I also am not a fan of unnecessary medical intervention. To me, healthy people under 40 getting boosters seems like people freaking out over drinking half a glass of wine during pregnancy. It’s more about extreme risk aversion than major reductions in mortality.

This is a weird take. People get annual flu shots, despite far lower risks of severe flu illness, and have for decades. Not everybody gets them, but if you tell your 40 year old peer group "I'm going to go get a flu shot", none of them are going to bat an eyelash; it's just a thing people do. Do you... not get flu shots? I'm not moralizing it, but like, it seem kind of silly to avoid them. They take like a minute (you get them when you were going to the drug store anyways) and spare several days of work you'd otherwise lose to an extremely annoying illness. Get the COVID shot at the same time, for the same reason.

Never had a flu shot, never had the flu. Some people just don't get the flu.

If I told you I was going to go get a flu shot, would you ask why I was opting in to an unnecessary health intervention?

No, if you like it, go for it. Seems better than getting laid up for a week if that's the alternative. But you seemed surprised that anybody might decline to get one.

Not at all. I've been spotty about flu shots! I was struck by the "unnecessary medical intervention" thing.

I got a fun case of afib after the booster. F that, I’d rather be sick

Similar to you I got 3 shots and covid. Covid was a mild cold. The 3rd shot had me in bed for 36 hours. Very hesitant to get the 4th booster.

From my end getting the fourth shot was fine with the bivalent one.

Had the same experience though beforehand. The first booster shot was worse than getting actual Covid.

I guess as always YMMV. At least here's one instance of this specific booster not being as bad as the others.

I happily received my fourth dose a while ago. Although I'm not in the official risk group in my country, they decided to give me one because of my (treated) hypertension. You get an SMS, confirm, and then go to the center to get the shot. I was aware of studies that indicate a decreased effectiveness for the fourth shot, but I leave such decisions to my doctor and the health authority who have dealt with this pandemic in a nearly optimal way.

I've never had any side effects of vaccinations and also never knowingly had Covid so far, which probably helps with such decisions.

My recent experience with jabs had basically zero side effects. My wife had some though.

Same here. All three jabs..no response. Finally caught Covid last month and had 3 days of a bad cold but still have a lingering 2 pack a day smoker's cough 4 weeks later. The wildfire smoke didn't help but I don't think it's the only cause of my cough.

people still push back against that kind of opinion, on the internet, because it is overrepresented by at risk people who stay indoors and have internet access

but the market has clearly decided it isn't interested in additional shots and nobody ever needs to say anything, ironically because at risk people have already self-segregated (or died) already

of the people not interested in additional shots, many of them are willing to take boosters for a seasonal covid variant, because its a ridiculous standard to be getting shots for covid alpha from 2019. this is the first of the shots for a seasonal covid variant.

  > I get a kind of full body lethargy and aches that last for a couple of days.

n=1 but, surprisingly, this 4th one (bivalent pfizer) wasnt that bad, just a bit sleepy the next morning (no fever either this time)

I also had no side effects of the latest booster. Earlier doses have me some arm ache, but that seemed irrelevant vs the benefits.

I get a flu shot every year and have no concerns over repeated Covid shots.

Also, never had Covid, In part because I don’t want to be responsible for giving it to someone with a weakened immune system. People who look at vaccination only in terms of their own risk/reward calculus are failing the communities they're part of

n=2, I was on the fence about a 4th shot, but decided on a whim to get it. No side effects previously, but this one gave me full bodies aches and extreme fatigue for about 36 hours.

Now that almost every person has been exposed to at least some minute amount of COVID and/or a vaccine, why are we still pushing 3rd/4th doses? Can't we just treat it like an endemic virus like the flu?

We can't because it is too damaging to health. Long COVID and death rates are too high, it wipes out anyone even close to immune compromised, like having had a cold recently.

A wave instantly overloaded hospitals in Germany, which is well equipped to handle it all... Many of those people will be disabled for months if not permanently. People are dying in USA by the thousands.

It is way too easy to catch, being more spreadable than measles. There is no currently working treatment besides supportive. (The one remaining mAb has some low remaining efficacy in old people.)

I never got the vaccine. Had covid twice. Both infections were pretty mild. Don't get it. There's no reason to.

It may be the case that you are in a demographic that has very low risk for serious infection, it may be that you’ve been quite lucky, but you haven’t indicated any information on that.

Regardless, anecdotes like this are about as useful as saying “there’s an orange tree in my garden” when it comes to evaluating medical decision making.

When I had covid it was pretty bad, but not bad enough to need hospitalisation. I’m a “high risk” group. My partner had it, and her experience has been 6 months of heart problems, despite being in a “low risk” group.

What have we learnt from these two stories? Absolutely nothing.

Almost all demographics are low risk for serious infection. I'm not lucky. If you have a serious reaction to covid it's because you're statistically very unlucky. The vast majority of people do not need to get the covid "vaccine."

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