Daily musings #622- Thursday, 10 November 2022

I had my 5th shot of the vaccine today. This was the bivalent shot with covers the original COVID-19 and all the Omicron variants like BA1…BA5. And I was one of those who ended up with the whole series of Moderna vaccines. So an initial Full dose, followed by three half doses, and now finally a full dose of the bivalent vaccine in a total of an 18-month period.

My family members ended up with different mix-and-match sequences of the vaccines. Now, none of these combinations are research-based so it is based on just expert opinion. Then again, for the last 15 years or more I have been having multivalent flu shots covering a bunch of flu viruses each year and I guess the process and the underlying assumptions are okay.

Here are the patterns we ended up with:

• My in-laws: Pfizer-Pfizer-Pfizer-Pfizer-Pfizer

• My first daughter: Pfizer-Moderna-Moderna-Moderna-Pfizer

• My second daughter: Pfizer-Modern-Moderna-Pfizer-Pfizer

• My spouse: Moderna-Moderna-Moderna-Moderna-Pfizer

• and me: Moderna-Moderna-Moderna-Moderna-Moderna

Usually, we send our in-laws first for their shots. See what happens and then we decide to take it after. They are our “canary in the coal mine”. Just kidding. It so happens that the 80+ and 70+ age groups are the first ones to be called, so it, therefore, was the sequence in which we got the shots.

All sorts of mix-and-match combinations. Who knows what difference it makes? But hey, we are the guinea pigs.