scrubbedexpat091

Astra Zeneca, it was take what is available now or risk waiting 2-3 more months, so I decided to take what was on offer now, as Moderna and Pfizer they are still a long ways off from my age group, so seemed best to take what was available rather than wait.

Jerseygirl

That’s the vaccine we had. After 22 days you are over 70% protected. Everyone I know in the UK has had the AZ. None have had problems or had Covid afterwards.

scrubbedexpat091

So far in Canada almost 800,000 AZ doses have been given, with only 3 people known to have gotten blood clots and 0 died, so the odds are pretty good nothing will happen.

kodokan

Moderna #1 in mid-March - spent a few frustrating days constantly checking for appointments when my over-50s category opened up in Ohio. Then I got lucky - the supermarket I work at had a spare dose from a cancelled appointment, so I got a ‘if you can get here within an hour, it’s yours’ call. Absolutely no side effects at all, not even a sore arm.

Moderna #2 nine days ago - sore arm that evening through to lunchtime the following day, but nothing ibuprofen didn’t completely fix. I maybe felt a bit tired the following day, but since I was off work I may also have been psychosomatically milking the chance to lounge around all day, reading Internet stuff, napping, and having the family bring me snacks 🙂 No other side effects at all, quite to my surprise.

Now I’m waiting on my vaccine payments - I’ll get $100 from my employer, and a further $100 from our union.

ddsrph

You can’t beat that deal. I heard that Walmart’s in Memphis are giving out gift cards to entice people to get vaccinated. Has your son finished up at Ohio State?

scrubbedexpat091

The government a month or 2 back when they were doing vaccines for homeless and high risk in the downtown east side, was giving those folks $5 after their vaccine.

I got a band aid but that was it, no bonus payment or gift card which appears is a thing in the US for some.

SpoogleDrummer

I just booked myself in to get the Moderna today, quite a few places around here now are offering same day appointments, I can't tell if that's a good thing or if it means most people aren't getting it.

kodokan

How nice of you to remember about him! No, he’s got about 18 months of credits to go, but is actually on a gap year right now. When his campus shut down last March, he of course moved back home and finished out that semester online. When classes started up again August 2020, he had the option of in-person but decided it would completely suck to attend lectures 6ft apart wearing masks; all the parties and social life wouldn’t be happening, etc, so he decided to do August-December semester online too to save paying for accommodation downtown when student life would otherwise be vastly limited there.

He discovered that doing college that way REALLY wasn’t what he had in mind for his student experience, and was starting to worry about going into his senior year having missed out on so much, unable to get internships, might graduate with a very limited resume, etc. So he decided to press the pause button and wait out Covid - he’s currently registered as part-time, doing just one online class to stay enrolled, but otherwise working full time in the same supermarket as me. It’s a lot of fun for us both - very bonding!

And he’s socking away a useful amount of college money, although recently his father has remarried a military person, and she’s very kindly transferred her un-needed GI Bill credits to her new stepchildren, my son and his sister. So Son will actually get a free ride for the rest of undergrad, and be able to use his savings for postgrad. It’s all working out very well for him, despite his shifts being 4am-noon - we’d NEVER thought of him as a morning person, but he’s surprisingly enjoying having most of the day free this way, so that’s a good self-knowledge experience for him.

scrubbedexpat091

Spoke too soon.

Astra Zeneca vaccine received 4/21 at 11am, felt a little tired a few hours later.

Woke up feeling fine on 4/22 and felt fine most of the day.

Both my wife and I started feeling under the weather around 4pm, and now we both feel blech. She has a very mild fever and aches, I am achy but no fever.

Hopefully by tomorrow will feel better, but suppose it means the body has discovered the vaccine and is doing its thing.

Steerpike

Just curious - what do you interpret "70% protected" to mean?

Lion in Winter

Apparently the presence of side effects doesn't mean anything in terms of the efficacy of the vaccine. Some people get side effects, some don't, but your immune system is doing the same thing as everyone else's, regardless. Hope you feel better soon.

scrubbedexpat091

She feels fine today, last night was rough for her with fever and chills though.

I feel blech but never got a fever or chills, very fatigued, very sore arm, headache, feel like I drank all night type feeling.

markonline1

Had my second shot of moderna Wednesday. Had it through work. Just about everyone was off sick yesterday with the same symptoms of joint pain. I had achey joints and a headache, but as I was one of the few that made it into work, I touched it out. Didn’t have the chills I had with the first shot though. I’d say the first shot was more severe. Second shot was more joints and feeling lethargic.
I did get to speak to one of the airport cops who came down with Covid in December. First time I saw him as he returns to light duties. Damn! That guy had it tough. Went downhill fast, actually believed he was going to die. He ended up on a ventilator in a coma. They were giving him ketamine, and although he had no concept of time whilst he was out, he remembers the vivid dreams brought on by the ketamine. Walls running with blood, demons after him. Even now, he says there huge periods of time in the last 12 months he no longer remembers. The loss of taste isn’t accurate. You lose most of the taste, or at least he did. But could still taste certain things in isolation. If he ate rice, all he could taste was the starch. If he drank Gatorade, all he could taste was the fructose. Pasta, just salt. Listening to him, what he went through sounded genuinely horrifying!!!

scrubbedexpat091

I read an article a few days ago where someone talked about their experience in the ICU on a ventilator, very similiar story about no concept of time, but had weird and disturbing dreams, and could at times hear the commotion of the ICU, sounded like it was just one big long 2 week nightmare, although the person also said they had no concept of time and didn't know it was 14 days later when they came to, but yeah doesn't sound like a pleasent experience in the ICU at all.

The person in the article also came very close to death on several occasions.

scrubbedexpat091

Maybe tomorrow I will be back to normal. The fatigue, back pain, and joint aches haven't gone away, still have the hung over feeling.

On a local reddit page, a few others have posted feeling the same way, including the back pain.

My wife is back to normal though, just 1 night of fever and chills.