Opinion: To Boost or Not to Boost, That Is the Question (Again)
Why I Decided to Get the Third Booster Shot
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When it comes to COVID, I’m a freak. As we near the third anniversary of the first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, I’m one of an increasingly rare breed: Americans who have never knowingly had COVID.
In July, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said that “about 70-plus percent of Americans have been infected.” That percentage is certainly even higher three months later. I’m a rare case even in my family. Among 25 people, my wife and I are the only ones who haven’t had it. A half dozen of them have contracted COVID at least twice.
I am also now among the relatively few who have received the third COVID booster.
How did I get decide to get the new booster?
First, a little history.
Like most Americans in January of 2021, before vaccines became a political football and resistance to COVID vaccination spread, I was anxious to get vaccinated and protect myself against the novel coronavirus. When I took my then 89-year-old mother for her first vaccine, a nice nurse agreed to give me the shot. It gave me a sore arm for a few days. No big deal.
The second, in February 2021, felt like a truck hit me at high speed. The side effects, almost every one you’ve ever read about, came on quickly as I ate lunch the following day. Nausea hit first. A lifelong meat-and-potatoes guy, I was eating a steak sandwich. I haven’t enjoyed steak since. Then came the aches and pains, topped off by a fever that reached 102 degrees. I felt much better by the next day, but it triggered mild asthma symptoms that needed treatment for a week.
The first booster, in October 2021, felt like a smaller truck hit me at slower speed. No nausea or asthma this time. The aches and pains were similar, but the fever only made it to 100.9 degrees. All of the issues were gone in 24 hours.
I had the second booster in April 2022. The symptoms were almost identical to what I had after the first.
For a guy who used to be able to count on one hand how many times he'd had a fever as an adult, none of it was fun.
Now, six months later, with warnings about new variants and concerns about a winter COVID wave, I again faced the question: To get or not to get the third booster. Many friends and family members have decided not to. As the CDC’s map below shows, they are far from alone. As of Sept. 30, 2022, only 3.6% of those eligible for the new bivalent booster had received it.
This map of U.S. states, territories and federal entities shows the percentages of their total population 18 years of age and older who have received the updated bivalent booster dose of the COVID vaccine. Courtesy: CDC.
Before I go on, I should say that I am very close to being eligible for Medicare, weigh more than I should, and you already heard about my asthma, all of which are risk factors. I don’t have any added protection because I have not contracted COVID (that I’m aware of). And I’m a university professor, so I am constantly around students in indoor settings, which puts me at a higher risk of infection than most people.
So, for me, getting the vaccine was a no-brainer. At my age, I had no concern whatsoever about safety; I know that Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci aren’t secretly implanting microchips in me through the vaccines; and I need to keep my immune system fired up to fight off COVID because even a mild case could trigger asthma, a long-lasting cough, and possibly more serious consequences.
What About People Who Don’t Have High Risk Factors?
Despite all the confusing noise made by anti-vaxxers, the bottom line is that the unvaccinated are dying at far higher rates than the vaccinated.
President Biden confirmed that when he warned that nearly every COVID death this year in the U.S. will be among people haven’t kept up with their vaccines. "Almost everyone who will die from COVID this year, will not be up-to-date on their shots,” Biden said at a press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, at the White House.
Beyond death and hospitalization (which is also greatly prevented by boosters), even mild cases of COVID can have unpleasant, sometimes serious short and long-term consequences. I’ve seen it firsthand, with my college-athlete son who has yet to fully recover his sense of smell even though 19 months have passed since he got sick, and with one of my brothers who remained weak for two months after contracting COVID.
If I were 40 and fitter, I would still have gotten the booster.
What About Younger People?
It’s easy to understand hesitancy among parents. The son of close friends, also a college athlete, had a terrible reaction to a vaccine and ended up in the hospital.
Some people, mostly young men under 30, have also had serious issues with myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle. But the incidence is very low, and a large recent study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation found that the risk of myocarditis is substantially higher immediately after being infected with COVID-19 than it is in the weeks following vaccination.
Additionally, extensive studies have found that the vaccines protect school-aged kids and that the benefits far outweigh the risks.
As fellow Meta Bulletin author and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School doctor Jeremy Faust writes, “The debate on Covid vaccines for school-aged children is over. The vaccines won.”
However, Faust acknowledges that the evidence about the positive effects of boosters on the younger age groups is less clear. “We don’t have data to show that boosters add protection against severe disease or death, in large part because the 2-dose series is just so effective for children (and even most young and middle-aged adults) in preventing those outcomes,” he writes.
Do We Know if the New Boosters Are Effective?
The day after Biden made the comments mentioned above, two small studies indicated that the new bivalent boosters from Pfizer and Moderna don’t broaden immunity against newer variants of the coronavirus. The human immune response to them appears to be about the same as that of the original boosters.
Don’t forget that last point. Even if those studies end up being confirmed by more extensive research, most adults still should want to get boosted again because they need the added protection. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have received the original boosters, which have proven to be extraordinarily safe. But the protection they provide wanes after a few months, so any booster will help shore up immunity.
Of course, the new bivalent boosters have less of a track record, but are only slight modified versions of the prior ones, and should be just as safe and effective.
Conclusion
Setting aside how getting boosted can protect your family, friends, and broader community, purely personal considerations should lead most people over 30 to stay up to date on their vaccines.
That said, it’s likely a sliding scale, where the oldest and most vulnerable need boosters more than the young and healthy.
Again, for me, the decision was easy. It will likely be the same in the future, if we end up needing to get regular shots like those for the flu. For almost four decades, ever since I started getting a yearly flu shot, I have never contracted influenza. I’m knocking on wood that the same will be the case with COVID.
Cover photo: A CVS employee give me the third COVID booster shot on Oct. 8, 2022, in Miami.
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