About to drive 45 minutes away to get my booster because my normal clinic is booked until January! Why is it such a mess? Why isn't it just integrated into regular flu shots? How are we still bad at this?
It's almost like they don't consider it a priority.
I mean, I just popped into the Walgreens down the street from my office after booking online the day prior and got stabbed for free after a 10 minute clipboarding. It seems like Kaiser has a lot more issues going on, which the strike is also indicative of.
Of course, Walgreens and CVS are in the midst of wildcat strikes, so they aren't exactly models either.
Only 2% of the nation have received the new booster. I encourage everyone on this board who posted so passionately about the vaccine during the declared pandemic to do what moniker has done and go get your updated booster. I am asking you roll up your sleeve and trust the science again.
Yeah, we did flu+Covid at once, it was pretty straightforward. Had to book the appointment a week or so out, but that's not too bad. At the time, they didn't have any kids doses available though, I wonder if that's changed now.
Only 2% of the nation have received the new booster. I encourage everyone on this board who posted so passionately about the vaccine during the declared pandemic to do what moniker has done and go get your updated booster. I am asking you roll up your sleeve and trust the science again.
Once I'm eligible in January, that's exactly what I'll be doing.
Working Gencon each year unfortunately skews the booster rotation timetable.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
About to drive 45 minutes away to get my booster because my normal clinic is booked until January! Why is it such a mess? Why isn't it just integrated into regular flu shots? How are we still bad at this?
It's almost like they don't consider it a priority.
I mean, I just popped into the Walgreens down the street from my office after booking online the day prior and got stabbed for free after a 10 minute clipboarding. It seems like Kaiser has a lot more issues going on, which the strike is also indicative of.
Of course, Walgreens and CVS are in the midst of wildcat strikes, so they aren't exactly models either.
Only 2% of the nation have received the new booster. I encourage everyone on this board who posted so passionately about the vaccine during the declared pandemic to do what moniker has done and go get your updated booster. I am asking you roll up your sleeve and trust the science again.
I think almost everyone in this thread has tried to get the booster, but, the rollout has been pointlessly confusing for a large section of the population. Family and I all have it now, but, it was pointlessly complicated with the interaction between Kaiser and CVS.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Only 2% of the nation have received the new booster. I encourage everyone on this board who posted so passionately about the vaccine during the declared pandemic to do what moniker has done and go get your updated booster. I am asking you roll up your sleeve and trust the science again.
Once I'm eligible in January, that's exactly what I'll be doing.
Working Gencon each year unfortunately skews the booster rotation timetable.
Did you get a new booster just before Gencon, and that's why? If so:
People who recently had SARS-CoV-2 infection may consider delaying a COVID-19 vaccine dose by 3 months from symptom onset or positive test (if infection was asymptomatic). Studies have shown that increased time between infection and vaccination might result in an improved immune response to vaccination. Also, a low risk of reinfection has been observed in the weeks to months following infection. Individual factors such as risk of COVID-19 severe disease or characteristics of the predominant SARS-CoV-2 strain should be taken into account when determining whether to delay getting a COVID-19 vaccination after infection.
Ok, so I know it's "just" a silly infographic (seriously, thanks for making it!) but I think the bit being asked before--and now I'm curious about too--is: in the vaccine case, isn't that cell now producing spike proteins forever? Like, great that it isn't producing intact virus to keep spreading, but that particular cell is never going to do its actual original function ever again, right? Or is the idea that the cell will probably just atrophy and get replaced as part of normal cell lifespans so it's just a drop in the bucket (compared to more viruses attacking and reprogramming more cells ad nauseum)?
Thanks much, I do appreciate that!
To answer that question to the best of my ability: No, mRNA is inherently unstable and doesn't stick around for very long.
DNA is very stable, and a genetic record of EVERYTHING in a cell. But it's massive, and since multiple proteins need to be made at once, making those proteins directly from DNA doesn't makes sense from an efficiency standpoint. So what cells do is make a copy of a specific part of DNA, and use that copy to make what it needs. That's mRNA. A cell can have multiple kinds of mRNA floating around at once, each making different proteins. Once they do their thing, the mRNA copies degrade by design, and the cellular machinery moves on to the next mRNA that's floating around.
In the mRNA vaccine case, no interaction is being had with DNA, and so no enduring or lasting change is incurred. Usually the process is DNA --> mRNA --> Protein, over and over and over. The mRNA vaccines kind of "cut in line" on this process by injecting specific mRNA for the spike protein into the whole sequence. Your cells make the spike, degrade the mRNA, and move on. The cell will resume normal function once the mRNA delivered by the vaccine is used and degraded.
It's not the mRNA that will cause the cell to die directly, but part of the body's defence against viruses is that a sample of all the proteins being produced is displayed on the surface of each cell and this is going to include the spike protein being used to vaccinate the patient.
The half life of these little chopped up bits of protein being presented at the surface is on average around 8-16 hrs but they do get recycled, reprocessed and presented again which will greatly extend the time that parts of the spike protein are visible - which is good! As if these foreign proteins are being presented on the surface of cells to cytotoxic CD8 T cells you could then get a T cell memory response going alongside making antibodies.
However, this is bad news for the cells that were previously making the spike protein, as to the CD8 T cells they appear as though they are currently infected with virus, who will go on to kill them.
We made the appointments at Rite-Aid the week after they were announced to be available. It took that long for their website to allow appointments for boosters to even get scheduled.
Not happy about the delay, but from the sounds of things, any sooner appointment may have not worked out anyway.
My parents got the booster on their third attempt at scheduling at Walgreens. The first two were canceled the morning of because, according to the guy who gave them the booster, Walgreens didn't have any extra ordered but prioritized walk-ins, so every walk-in resulted in a cancellation of someone's appointment.
"Let's take a look at the scores! The girls are at the square root of Pi, while the boys are still at a crudely drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's anybody's game!"
Ok, so I know it's "just" a silly infographic (seriously, thanks for making it!) but I think the bit being asked before--and now I'm curious about too--is: in the vaccine case, isn't that cell now producing spike proteins forever? Like, great that it isn't producing intact virus to keep spreading, but that particular cell is never going to do its actual original function ever again, right? Or is the idea that the cell will probably just atrophy and get replaced as part of normal cell lifespans so it's just a drop in the bucket (compared to more viruses attacking and reprogramming more cells ad nauseum)?
Thanks much, I do appreciate that!
To answer that question to the best of my ability: No, mRNA is inherently unstable and doesn't stick around for very long.
DNA is very stable, and a genetic record of EVERYTHING in a cell. But it's massive, and since multiple proteins need to be made at once, making those proteins directly from DNA doesn't makes sense from an efficiency standpoint. So what cells do is make a copy of a specific part of DNA, and use that copy to make what it needs. That's mRNA. A cell can have multiple kinds of mRNA floating around at once, each making different proteins. Once they do their thing, the mRNA copies degrade by design, and the cellular machinery moves on to the next mRNA that's floating around.
In the mRNA vaccine case, no interaction is being had with DNA, and so no enduring or lasting change is incurred. Usually the process is DNA --> mRNA --> Protein, over and over and over. The mRNA vaccines kind of "cut in line" on this process by injecting specific mRNA for the spike protein into the whole sequence. Your cells make the spike, degrade the mRNA, and move on. The cell will resume normal function once the mRNA delivered by the vaccine is used and degraded.
It's not the mRNA that will cause the cell to die directly, but part of the body's defence against viruses is that a sample of all the proteins being produced is displayed on the surface of each cell and this is going to include the spike protein being used to vaccinate the patient.
The half life of these little chopped up bits of protein being presented at the surface is on average around 8-16 hrs but they do get recycled, reprocessed and presented again which will greatly extend the time that parts of the spike protein are visible - which is good! As if these foreign proteins are being presented on the surface of cells to cytotoxic CD8 T cells you could then get a T cell memory response going alongside making antibodies.
However, this is bad news for the cells that were previously making the spike protein, as to the CD8 T cells they appear as though they are currently infected with virus, who will go on to kill them.
Walgreens didn't have any extra ordered but prioritized walk-ins, so every walk-in resulted in a cancellation of someone's appointment.
What in the low-flying fuck??
See, if you made an appointment you have shown that you are invested in getting the vaccine, whereas a walk in might have just decided to come in spur of the moment. You will reschedule, they might not.
Thus the logical answer is to vaccinate the ephemeral, mercurial walk in patient over the boring, planned and scheduled appointment. Thus we get to charge insurance/government for more boosters deliv**cough cough** get the best coverage for vaccinations.
Walgreens didn't have any extra ordered but prioritized walk-ins, so every walk-in resulted in a cancellation of someone's appointment.
What in the low-flying fuck??
See, if you made an appointment you have shown that you are invested in getting the vaccine, whereas a walk in might have just decided to come in spur of the moment. You will reschedule, they might not.
Thus the logical answer is to vaccinate the ephemeral, mercurial walk in patient over the boring, planned and scheduled appointment. Thus we get to charge insurance/government for more boosters deliv**cough cough** get the best coverage for vaccinations.
They overproduced and had to discard some absurd number of doses in the past, pretty sure everyone involved in this distribution chain is already getting paid whether they use the boosters or throw them in the trash and this kind of conspiracy theory doesn't even have a practical motivation.
Ok, so I know it's "just" a silly infographic (seriously, thanks for making it!) but I think the bit being asked before--and now I'm curious about too--is: in the vaccine case, isn't that cell now producing spike proteins forever? Like, great that it isn't producing intact virus to keep spreading, but that particular cell is never going to do its actual original function ever again, right? Or is the idea that the cell will probably just atrophy and get replaced as part of normal cell lifespans so it's just a drop in the bucket (compared to more viruses attacking and reprogramming more cells ad nauseum)?
Thanks much, I do appreciate that!
To answer that question to the best of my ability: No, mRNA is inherently unstable and doesn't stick around for very long.
DNA is very stable, and a genetic record of EVERYTHING in a cell. But it's massive, and since multiple proteins need to be made at once, making those proteins directly from DNA doesn't makes sense from an efficiency standpoint. So what cells do is make a copy of a specific part of DNA, and use that copy to make what it needs. That's mRNA. A cell can have multiple kinds of mRNA floating around at once, each making different proteins. Once they do their thing, the mRNA copies degrade by design, and the cellular machinery moves on to the next mRNA that's floating around.
In the mRNA vaccine case, no interaction is being had with DNA, and so no enduring or lasting change is incurred. Usually the process is DNA --> mRNA --> Protein, over and over and over. The mRNA vaccines kind of "cut in line" on this process by injecting specific mRNA for the spike protein into the whole sequence. Your cells make the spike, degrade the mRNA, and move on. The cell will resume normal function once the mRNA delivered by the vaccine is used and degraded.
It's not the mRNA that will cause the cell to die directly, but part of the body's defence against viruses is that a sample of all the proteins being produced is displayed on the surface of each cell and this is going to include the spike protein being used to vaccinate the patient.
The half life of these little chopped up bits of protein being presented at the surface is on average around 8-16 hrs but they do get recycled, reprocessed and presented again which will greatly extend the time that parts of the spike protein are visible - which is good! As if these foreign proteins are being presented on the surface of cells to cytotoxic CD8 T cells you could then get a T cell memory response going alongside making antibodies.
However, this is bad news for the cells that were previously making the spike protein, as to the CD8 T cells they appear as though they are currently infected with virus, who will go on to kill them.
So the XKCD comic is accurate then?
Just some very flustered Death Star builders
Not really no, or well yes - but that's the B cell side of things with making antibodies.
The T cell system in this case a rebel agent noticing a few off duty storm troopers, or an ISB officer they know, having a deathstick break whilst leaning up against an otherwise innocuous factory or warehouse, and deciding it must be worth blowing up.
There's no real connection to the virus particle itself (the T cells wouldn't 'see' those), the CD8 T cells just recognise things that don't belong in otherwise healthy cells.
There's around one SI African Elephant worth of antigens that T cells can recognise, as in if you had one T cell for each potential bit of protein sequence an individual T cell receptor can theoretically recognise you'd have roughly the same number of cells that make up an adult male African elephant. Like antibodies, each T cell receptor only recognises a single antigen and over your life you cycle through the elephant - keeping the ones that respond to recurring threats and taking a mulligan on the ones that never see anything.
As the cell mature into ready to activate CD8 cytotoxic T cells they have to go through two stages in the thymus (which is why they are T cells, T for Thymus though it later turned out that this is just where they are tested, not where they were made). Firstly to survive to become full grown T cells they have to show that they can activate, some mutations to their T cell receptors just break it rather than letting it recognise some new antigen (in the antigen presentation complex all cells have), so these are weeded out first. After this the immature T cells go through a crash course of what the body looks like, by being shown a wide range of healthy, self antigens - any cells that react now are terminated as too high a risk to allow out. If you survive both tests, you are now a naive T cell, ready to go out into the world - looking for something specifically new, in a place you should only see boring familiar things.
(These guys are also partnered up to a degree with the 'basic grunt' Natural Killer cells, who express genes which give them a list of things to look for that are the tell tale signs of bacteria, viruses or fungi. These guys will also ask to see cells papers (the self antigen presenting complex), and will kill them if they don't, but they're not interested it what is actually there - just that cells are presenting things for the T cells to look over.)
The adaptive immune system is pretty amazing, but also the majority of the cells it generates end up getting told it is apoptosis time. All the more fascinating was learning that only vertebrates have adaptive immune systems, the invertebrates only have the innate immune system. Plants have an innate immune system that works fairly differently as I recall, and I just now googled to see if complex fungi had one because I realized I had no idea... found t his, going to read it now: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5658179/
Walgreens didn't have any extra ordered but prioritized walk-ins, so every walk-in resulted in a cancellation of someone's appointment.
What in the low-flying fuck??
See, if you made an appointment you have shown that you are invested in getting the vaccine, whereas a walk in might have just decided to come in spur of the moment. You will reschedule, they might not.
Thus the logical answer is to vaccinate the ephemeral, mercurial walk in patient over the boring, planned and scheduled appointment. Thus we get to charge insurance/government for more boosters deliv**cough cough** get the best coverage for vaccinations.
They overproduced and had to discard some absurd number of doses in the past, pretty sure everyone involved in this distribution chain is already getting paid whether they use the boosters or throw them in the trash and this kind of conspiracy theory doesn't even have a practical motivation.
Setting aside the joke in the strikeout, what reason would you posit for prioritizing walk ins?
Well, besides exactly what you mentioned after the strikeout seems pretty logical, that if we're looking for a master plan, you can serve the spontaneous customer and be confident the appointment setter will just book another time but turning away the former may shrug and not bother - there's a very likely explanation that requires no strategy or scheme:
The person administering the doses simply does not care, they're just giving these things away first come, first serve, they work in retail, not hospitality, and one customer is just as valid as another, no one is going to reprimand them for this sort of thing.
Also once COVID became politicized I recall stories of folks reservation bombing vaccine clinics in an attempt to interfere with vaccinations, some of the webpages have CAPTCHAs now, it isn't too surprising that getting vaccines into arms is priority over how the arm got there.
Does anyone know anything about Novavax or if there is any major stores carrying it? I want to get another booster for Covid, but the last time I had an allergic reaction that damn near ended in an ER trip, and honestly probably should have anyways. I am hoping it is just something specific to the mRNA Covid vaccine but I haven't been able to test it yet.
Does anyone know anything about Novavax or if there is any major stores carrying it? I want to get another booster for Covid, but the last time I had an allergic reaction that damn near ended in an ER trip, and honestly probably should have anyways. I am hoping it is just something specific to the mRNA Covid vaccine but I haven't been able to test it yet.
You should consult with your doctor before getting one to see if based on your history you should get it at the office instead, but it looks like you can filter by manufacturer here https://www.vaccines.gov/search/
Does anyone know anything about Novavax or if there is any major stores carrying it? I want to get another booster for Covid, but the last time I had an allergic reaction that damn near ended in an ER trip, and honestly probably should have anyways. I am hoping it is just something specific to the mRNA Covid vaccine but I haven't been able to test it yet.
You should consult with your doctor before getting one to see if based on your history you should get it at the office instead, but it looks like you can filter by manufacturer here https://www.vaccines.gov/search/
It is on his recommendation I am trying it. Thanks for the link!
You can’t be confident that the person with the appointment who was turned away will rebook. For a start, they just lost faith in the booking system. Secondly, they might have scheduled for a time when they were not busy and suddenly get busy and forget.
You can’t be confident that the person with the appointment who was turned away will rebook. For a start, they just lost faith in the booking system. Secondly, they might have scheduled for a time when they were not busy and suddenly get busy and forget.
I think Lanalorn has convinced me to apply Hanlon’s razor here and just assume they (the person setting the policy at that location) didn’t care.
maraji on
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I got both of my flu and COVID booster(s) last weekend. Walking around with the help of a metal stick most days, though on some days the pain/agony/heaviness is more manageable. More hospital appointments (and more travel back and forth) coming up in the future.
I have a crowd-funder open here, if anyone can help, but please, look after yourselves first/foremost and, as ever, live long and prosper🌎🙇🏻♀️👩🏻🦯🖖🏻, wonderful people of P.A.F. 💓🖖🏻
Well goddamit. I got Covid again, on literally the same exact day as I got it last year. Now I get to play my favorite game again, the game of "Can I avoid giving Covid to my partner with CFS and autoimmue disease!"
It fucking sucks too, because I'm 90% sure that I got it from this work trip I just had to do, as the CEO was hacking up a lung for 90 minutes during a meeting but assuring us "Don't worry, its not Covid (my thought: great! Can't wait to contract whatever the fuck it is! It looks like a blast!)". I also prepared for it as best as I could by strategically planning to get my vaccination 16 days before the trip, and was successful in that, but it didn't protect me enough. Hopefully it protects my partner and leads to a relatively brief isolation, last time it took 21 fucking days and I missed Halloween and her birthday.
My family and I are waiting for our boosters in Rite Aid right now.
Our appointments were 20 minutes ago.
Nobody else here is getting them.
Starting to get pretty damned annoyed. After having to wait a month for the appointments, you'd think at least by the time the day came, we could actually get them when scheduled.
Edit: 45 minutes later and we finally got them. And my cell reception is no better damnit.
Mathew Burrack on
"Let's take a look at the scores! The girls are at the square root of Pi, while the boys are still at a crudely drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's anybody's game!"
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Well goddamit. I got Covid again, on literally the same exact day as I got it last year. Now I get to play my favorite game again, the game of "Can I avoid giving Covid to my partner with CFS and autoimmue disease!"
It fucking sucks too, because I'm 90% sure that I got it from this work trip I just had to do, as the CEO was hacking up a lung for 90 minutes during a meeting but assuring us "Don't worry, its not Covid (my thought: great! Can't wait to contract whatever the fuck it is! It looks like a blast!)". I also prepared for it as best as I could by strategically planning to get my vaccination 16 days before the trip, and was successful in that, but it didn't protect me enough. Hopefully it protects my partner and leads to a relatively brief isolation, last time it took 21 fucking days and I missed Halloween and her birthday.
That sucks. I hope you both get through this quickly and uneventfully
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
edited October 2023
Just a note for something I keep seeing anecdotally: If someone sick says "Oh, it's not COVID", there's like... an 80-90% chance that it is COVID.
Mostly because it's starting to look like the newer variants don't really pop on the at-home tests until around four days into the symptoms. Most people test once when they start to feel icky, and then assume a negative test means they're free and clear to spread anything they have to anyone they want.
“Right at the beginning point of an infection, there's limited viral copies. But as the infection progresses, you'll have an increasing amount of virus replicating in your body,” he added.
The study found that at-home tests were most accurate on the fourth day of symptoms. They could still pick up some infections in the first three days but were more likely to be negative. The findings show that people should not be able to rule out COVID-19 just based on a negative test early on after symptoms start, the study authors said.
“New variants may cause differences in [the] timing of viral load. It may affect the timing of when tests may be the most optimal to detect the virus,” Brownstein said.
“This study highlights the challenges of optimizing test performance and timing for the most effective action,” he added.
Why is "don't share your fucking pestilence no matter what it is" such a hard sell??
Because our dysfunctional combination of work culture and health care expects if not requires people to come to work sick.
It would have been nice, if after the pandemic, we had normalized wearing a mask (medical, or N95) when coughing and/or sneezing. Just like, being adults about it all.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I mean, if that was the CEO, I assume it's more to the end of not wanting to be inconvenienced by anything.
Oct 18 (Reuters) - Pfizer on Wednesday (PFE.N) said it will set the U.S. price for its COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid at nearly $1,400 per five-day course when it moves to commercial sales after government stocks run out, more than double what the government currently pays for it.
The new list price, which does not include rebates and other discounts to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, is $1,390 per course, Pfizer said in an emailed statement. The U.S. government paid around $530 per course for Paxlovid it has made available to Americans at no cost.
Paxlovid, the most commonly prescribed at home treatment for COVID-19 in the U.S., will remain available for free to patients there until the end of the year, Pfizer said.
Jesus fucking Christ.
EDIT:
Even worse: how much it costs to produce in comparison:
1) Paxlovid costs $13 to make. Increasing prices to $2500/course = 19,100% markup.
2) We still don't know how well Paxlovid works in many pops. Pfizer is still blocking independent trials (+ dodgily using secondary endpoints/changed pops)
I mean, comparison to API/manufacturing costs alone is pretty misleading, other than to have a big scary number.
More concerning is the price increase on the basis of ???. Generally you’d think costs and prices should trend down with time.
But how will those poor pharmacutical companies pull any money?
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TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
It is impossible for a pharmaceutical company to operate ethically under a capitalist system, but I'm going to wager that such a discussion would bleed beyond the scope of this thread's topic.
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Only 2% of the nation have received the new booster. I encourage everyone on this board who posted so passionately about the vaccine during the declared pandemic to do what moniker has done and go get your updated booster. I am asking you roll up your sleeve and trust the science again.
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Once I'm eligible in January, that's exactly what I'll be doing.
Working Gencon each year unfortunately skews the booster rotation timetable.
I think almost everyone in this thread has tried to get the booster, but, the rollout has been pointlessly confusing for a large section of the population. Family and I all have it now, but, it was pointlessly complicated with the interaction between Kaiser and CVS.
Did you get a new booster just before Gencon, and that's why? If so:
In the US at least, the booster rotation should only be 2 months (8 weeks) after your last vaccine for the new updated vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0912-COVID-19-Vaccine.html You can see a table here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/interim-considerations-us.html
The far right side of the table shows the number of weeks recommended to have as an interval. The longest, assuming you were fully boosted previously (3 or more doses of any MRNA vaccine), is 8 weeks.
If, on the other hand, you got COVID at Gencon, 3 months is the general recommendation for the updated vaccine, so you should be eligible for the update in November- though it's only a soft recommendation.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/interim-considerations-us.html#people-with-prior-current-sarscov2-infection
It's not the mRNA that will cause the cell to die directly, but part of the body's defence against viruses is that a sample of all the proteins being produced is displayed on the surface of each cell and this is going to include the spike protein being used to vaccinate the patient.
The half life of these little chopped up bits of protein being presented at the surface is on average around 8-16 hrs but they do get recycled, reprocessed and presented again which will greatly extend the time that parts of the spike protein are visible - which is good! As if these foreign proteins are being presented on the surface of cells to cytotoxic CD8 T cells you could then get a T cell memory response going alongside making antibodies.
However, this is bad news for the cells that were previously making the spike protein, as to the CD8 T cells they appear as though they are currently infected with virus, who will go on to kill them.
We made the appointments at Rite-Aid the week after they were announced to be available. It took that long for their website to allow appointments for boosters to even get scheduled.
Not happy about the delay, but from the sounds of things, any sooner appointment may have not worked out anyway.
My parents got the booster on their third attempt at scheduling at Walgreens. The first two were canceled the morning of because, according to the guy who gave them the booster, Walgreens didn't have any extra ordered but prioritized walk-ins, so every walk-in resulted in a cancellation of someone's appointment.
So the XKCD comic is accurate then?
What in the low-flying fuck??
See, if you made an appointment you have shown that you are invested in getting the vaccine, whereas a walk in might have just decided to come in spur of the moment. You will reschedule, they might not.
Thus the logical answer is to vaccinate the ephemeral, mercurial walk in patient over the boring, planned and scheduled appointment. Thus we get to charge insurance/government for more boosters deliv**cough cough** get the best coverage for vaccinations.
They overproduced and had to discard some absurd number of doses in the past, pretty sure everyone involved in this distribution chain is already getting paid whether they use the boosters or throw them in the trash and this kind of conspiracy theory doesn't even have a practical motivation.
Not really no, or well yes - but that's the B cell side of things with making antibodies.
The T cell system in this case a rebel agent noticing a few off duty storm troopers, or an ISB officer they know, having a deathstick break whilst leaning up against an otherwise innocuous factory or warehouse, and deciding it must be worth blowing up.
There's no real connection to the virus particle itself (the T cells wouldn't 'see' those), the CD8 T cells just recognise things that don't belong in otherwise healthy cells.
There's around one SI African Elephant worth of antigens that T cells can recognise, as in if you had one T cell for each potential bit of protein sequence an individual T cell receptor can theoretically recognise you'd have roughly the same number of cells that make up an adult male African elephant. Like antibodies, each T cell receptor only recognises a single antigen and over your life you cycle through the elephant - keeping the ones that respond to recurring threats and taking a mulligan on the ones that never see anything.
As the cell mature into ready to activate CD8 cytotoxic T cells they have to go through two stages in the thymus (which is why they are T cells, T for Thymus though it later turned out that this is just where they are tested, not where they were made). Firstly to survive to become full grown T cells they have to show that they can activate, some mutations to their T cell receptors just break it rather than letting it recognise some new antigen (in the antigen presentation complex all cells have), so these are weeded out first. After this the immature T cells go through a crash course of what the body looks like, by being shown a wide range of healthy, self antigens - any cells that react now are terminated as too high a risk to allow out. If you survive both tests, you are now a naive T cell, ready to go out into the world - looking for something specifically new, in a place you should only see boring familiar things.
(These guys are also partnered up to a degree with the 'basic grunt' Natural Killer cells, who express genes which give them a list of things to look for that are the tell tale signs of bacteria, viruses or fungi. These guys will also ask to see cells papers (the self antigen presenting complex), and will kill them if they don't, but they're not interested it what is actually there - just that cells are presenting things for the T cells to look over.)
Setting aside the joke in the strikeout, what reason would you posit for prioritizing walk ins?
The person administering the doses simply does not care, they're just giving these things away first come, first serve, they work in retail, not hospitality, and one customer is just as valid as another, no one is going to reprimand them for this sort of thing.
You should consult with your doctor before getting one to see if based on your history you should get it at the office instead, but it looks like you can filter by manufacturer here https://www.vaccines.gov/search/
It is on his recommendation I am trying it. Thanks for the link!
I think Lanalorn has convinced me to apply Hanlon’s razor here and just assume they (the person setting the policy at that location) didn’t care.
I have a crowd-funder open here, if anyone can help, but please, look after yourselves first/foremost and, as ever, live long and prosper🌎🙇🏻♀️👩🏻🦯🖖🏻, wonderful people of P.A.F. 💓🖖🏻
It fucking sucks too, because I'm 90% sure that I got it from this work trip I just had to do, as the CEO was hacking up a lung for 90 minutes during a meeting but assuring us "Don't worry, its not Covid (my thought: great! Can't wait to contract whatever the fuck it is! It looks like a blast!)". I also prepared for it as best as I could by strategically planning to get my vaccination 16 days before the trip, and was successful in that, but it didn't protect me enough. Hopefully it protects my partner and leads to a relatively brief isolation, last time it took 21 fucking days and I missed Halloween and her birthday.
Our appointments were 20 minutes ago.
Nobody else here is getting them.
Starting to get pretty damned annoyed. After having to wait a month for the appointments, you'd think at least by the time the day came, we could actually get them when scheduled.
Edit: 45 minutes later and we finally got them. And my cell reception is no better damnit.
That sucks. I hope you both get through this quickly and uneventfully
Mostly because it's starting to look like the newer variants don't really pop on the at-home tests until around four days into the symptoms. Most people test once when they start to feel icky, and then assume a negative test means they're free and clear to spread anything they have to anyone they want.
Because our dysfunctional combination of work culture and health care expects if not requires people to come to work sick.
It would have been nice, if after the pandemic, we had normalized wearing a mask (medical, or N95) when coughing and/or sneezing. Just like, being adults about it all.
Jesus fucking Christ.
EDIT:
Even worse: how much it costs to produce in comparison:
This should be criminal on the level of Martin Shkreli to sell a lifesaving medicine at such an outrageous profit margin.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
More concerning is the price increase on the basis of ???. Generally you’d think costs and prices should trend down with time.
But how will those poor pharmacutical companies pull any money?
"How much ya got?"
That seems like it'd be a significant figure.