On the evening of October 26th, I received Moderna’s latest COVID-19 booster shot. On their website, Moderna refers to this latest boost as SPIKEVAX.
Moderna says this booster works against the BA.2.86 omicron sub-variant, codenamed Pirola. This sub-variant has not gained widespread prevalence in the U.S. yet, but it has alarmed experts because it can cause more severe illness.
When I received the initial two-shot vaccines and the other booster shots, I had a minor reaction to them. The symptoms I had were muscle/joint ache and being cold. This usually occurred about eight hours after receiving the shot and would last about 8-10 hours.
For this latest shot, it still took probably eight hours to affect me, but the symptoms were much stronger. I had the same muscle/joint ache issue, but it was much stronger this time. I also experienced being cold. I called out of work and spent much of the day in bed.
When I woke up Saturday morning, all was back to normal, and I felt fine except for a sore arm from the injection. Reading online, a more severe reaction generally means you have a stronger immunity system. If that’s the case, I feel good about that. Either way, a day of discomfort is a small price to pay rather than having a bad case of COVID.
My office, which once hosted 40-50 people daily pre-COVID, has never gone back to that loading. If there are 15 people in the office, it’s a busy day. I go in every day, as do some others, but most only come into the office one day a week, the minimum permitted by my employer. We have a few remote workers who don’t have to come into the office, some living in different states.
I plan to write another post of my thoughts on all this teleworking, etc, so stay tuned.
