8 ms·

All adults can get a Covid vaccine booster in CA, not just those CDC listed

49 points by bryan0 5y ago

loudtieblahblah 5y ago
Oh, whew!
Steltek 5y ago
Booster and office access has been such a ringing dissonance for me. For boosters, I'm "too healthy" and do not qualify under even the most generous reading of the CDC guidance. On office access, my office is still not open while the rest of my family has gone back to work/school. My spouse is higher risk and my kids only got their first shots last week. So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? What is the point anymore?
- landryraccoon 5y ago
  Are you complaining about working from home? If I never go back to the office I'm fine with it. Maybe it would help to work from a cafe, or even outside on a picnic table. You can tether to your phone. Of all the things I miss from pre-pandemic life, commuting in to the office is NOT one of them.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    Yeah, actually. I biked to work. It was great exercise, physically and mentally. The change of scenery was a good shift and being downtown with lots of coworkers and people was invigorating. Biking was also pretty core to my identity. Not in a "spandex/lycra" way (don't own any) but it's probably one of the first things people would start with when describing me. Now that's all gone cuz I've got no where to go. A debate wouldn't be productive but let's just say a cafe or park is not a long term solution.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      Are you saying the debate would go in wider and wider circles, maybe meander around a bit?
    - vmception 5y ago
      I actually am considering forming local only in person teams for tech projects/ventures, I think there is a market demand for it (and talent). That may just be a factor of my neighborhood, as many people that could re-locate, relocated to the same areas. Given all the commercial space available as companies vacated, its just the free market in action. What I'm finding is that people rejected one environment, but have not been given a framework to navigate an unstructured life. And like a familiar structure.
    - newbie789 5y ago
      Can’t you just bike for recreation? Biking is both “core to your identity” but also something you don’t do unless you strictly have to?
    - kevinmchugh 5y ago
      I know a lot of people who have biked or walked to start and the end work day, regardless of if they were working from home or an office.
    - mrighele 5y ago
      Note that you can still bike to work: take your bike, drive halfway to you workplace, come back home and start working. For some person having a ritual marking the beginning and the end of the workday can also be useful to balance work and personal life. This doesn't help with missing the coworkers of course, but depending on what kind of job and where they live maybe something can be done about that too ?
    - landryraccoon 5y ago
      I'm a biker too. I have more time for biking now that I'm not in the office - I can hop on the bike and choose a route in the morning before I start my day, or in the early evening after work is done. If anything, not being in the office should give you more time to exercise in the way you want to.
  - outside1234 5y ago
    I want to go back to work "a little bit" - ie. once a week or so when we all rally there. I'm not looking for everyday, but one day a week would be nice to have more interactive discussions about the work that week etc.
  - sieabahlpark 5y ago
    Not everyone has a bad office environment or commute they're trying to avoid
- mulmen 5y ago
  Does your spouse have a booster?
  - Steltek 5y ago
    Yes, err obviously? Given a choice, she'd rather be the one that's home all day but that's sadly not to be.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      From the phrasing of your comment it wasn't clear to me if your spouse has: 1) A booster 2) A less restrictive workplace or perhaps an "essential" job. 3) A medical condition that precludes the vaccine.
- outside1234 5y ago
  You are protecting the company from liability. That's the only thing I can work out - they are worried about one person getting sick and dying on campus from a back to work mandate - then what happens?
  - infamouscow 5y ago
    This is complete nonsense and only benefits the pockets of lawyers, pharma companies, and the media. If this reasoning was logically sound then the same should apply for all of the existing fatal diseases listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics. Let's also not forget seasonal flu.
- boplicity 5y ago
  > So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? It's not about you. I'm not convinced that boosters should be required, in order to go back to work. But, really, to answer your question: It's not about you. It's about the people you're around. At work. Just like everything else with COVID -- the reality is that we have to account for the affect on everyone, and not just ourselves. Individually, we have extremely low odds of suffering the worst from COVID. Collectively, hospitals have overflowed, 700,000+ people in the States have died, and many are suffering long-term health consequences. It's not about you. It's about everyone. That being said: I'm in Canada, where boosters are still uncommon. I've never heard of any booster requirements, just to go into the office.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    You're missing the dissonance part: all the people around me, who are high risk, are at work or school. I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Also to clarify, I'm very much NOT arguing for forcing people to return to work or an in-person model of work. In fact, I quite like the "remote style" of work and would continue it even while in person. I just miss my commute and the scene.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      What are you arguing for? If co-workers don't wish to go back into the office even if they're allowed to (which is the situation at a lot of tech companies these days), what does that do for your commute and scene? (I do get some nostalgia for being with co-workers--and I'm certainly happy to be back to events again--but clearly there's a tradeoff that you and co-workers need to make.)
    - foogazi 5y ago
      > I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Do you work in a 1 person office? - are there others there and maybe management doesn’t want a full office everyday, have you asked them ? It’s not about you
    - 5y ago
- wwweston 5y ago
  Probably has more to do with how office is calculating their collective risks in business-as-usual on site than with your specific risk. And beyond that, limits on individual activity have as much to do with collective regional transmission rate as they do with individual risk (though CA numbers look pretty decent recently).
- poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
  Not sure how old kids are or if you really have a choice at this stage, but it does seem Germany, France, Scandanavia, Taiwan have halted at least Moderna for the youth and now even Pfizer (Taiwan). Saying because people in my family didn't know about this, and would have wanted this relatively new information to help make a decision.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Like most situations (at least in CA) involving the pandemic, doing it a wrong way is easier than doing it the right way. All the people I know who got their boosters simply lied and said they were eligible. Nobody checks. Just like back when the vaccines first emerged: The easiest way to get one early was to just lie. Nobody checked back then, either. Ironically, also the easiest way to comply with any vaccine mandate, so far, has been to just lie and say you are vaccinated and/or present a fake card. You can basically do anything, with a white piece of cardboard that says "Mickey Mouse" on it. Nobody verifies anything. It's all incompetence and blind trust from officials, top to bottom, which incentivizes taking the easier, dishonest path. It's like getting pulled over and being able to say "trust me officer, I've got a license" and they believe you. Honesty and waiting your turn buys you nothing. Total incompetence.
- slg 5y ago
  There are three parts of the equation:: - Your personal risk if you caught COVID - The risk that you would spread COVID to other people if you caught COVID - How productive you can be at home compared to your office/school Your overall health only impacts the first one which is why you haven't been eligible for a booster. You still have just as much risk of spreading COVID as anyone else so unless you would be much more efficient at the office/school, it still makes sense to stay home. For example, I would bet you would agree that your kids are getting more out of going to school rather than doing it remotely so that third variable shifts the overall equation to favor them returning to in person schooling.
- armchairhacker 5y ago
  Lots of people are justifying this as if it's logical, but ultimately rules like this are the result of bureaucracy. Most likely your office is still WFH because nobody cares. Maybe nobody else wants to go back, maybe the company saves money, maybe someone high-up is still nervous about covid, probably a combination of those three. It's similar to how at most places there are signs everywhere saying "please remain 6 feet apart", "due to covid ..." and people don't even follow these rules. Nobody bothered to take the signs down. Ultimately if you're vaccinated, there's not really a point to masking or social distancing. The exception is masking in public areas like supermarkets and doctors' offices where sick people have to go and it's not a big deal. Or in areas where there is hospitals are overflowing and there are too many unvaccinated, like earlier in the year.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  It’s not for you to understand, citizen. Just do as you’re told!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Turing_Machine 5y ago
I see nothing wrong with this, now that the vaccines appear to be in plentiful supply. If you think you need the extra protection, why not? It would have been different back in the early days, when there wasn't enough to go around. Then it made sense to restrict vaccines to the most vulnerable (elderly, people in poor health, people who are exposed a lot in the course of their employment...)
- throaway46546 5y ago
  The recommendation wasn't about vaccine supply. It was about the dubious benefit of boosters for the general population.
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    It doesn't matter whether the benefits are dubious or not, IMO. People take all kinds of OTC (and prescription) drugs for dubious benefits. If there's plenty to go around, why not let people decide that for themselves? Edit: https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashbo... 20.9 billion doses have been secured. If someone can't get a first or second dose, it's because their government is fucked up in some way, not because there is a shortage of the raw vaccines.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      Much of the world still can't get their first shots. > Rich countries have about twice the population of low-income countries, yet they have received about 50 times as many Covid-19 vaccine doses [0] [0] https://www.vox.com/22759707/covid-19-vaccine-gap-covax-rich-poor-countries-boosters https://www.vox.com/22759707/covid-19-vaccine-gap-covax-rich...
    - sojournerc 5y ago
      OTC drugs have gone through _long-term_ studies. 12 months is not long-term.
    - throaway46546 5y ago
idlewords 5y ago
You can get a booster shot pretty much anywhere in the US by self-declaring you're in a high risk category. Since that includes being overweight, a lot of people can get their boosters in full good conscience. Walgreens is one place where there's almost no wait.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Former smokers too.
- Steltek 5y ago
  The CDC guidance can be generously interpreted to include anyone who works in person and not remotely as well.
- giga_chad 5y ago
  Better to just lose weight, that protects you from many other preventable diseases, is risk free, and easy to do.
  - idlewords 5y ago
    It doesn't protect you from covid.
    - zyemuzu 5y ago
      Being a healthy weight is an excellent way to lower your chances of developing the more serious symptoms of COVID.
      - idlewords 5y ago
        What an odd place this site is. We have a vaccine that works great, but still people have to find a way to nerdfight.
    - TMWNN 5y ago
      Losing weight absolutely protects you from serious COVID19 effects. Weight is a comorbidity.
mywittyname 5y ago
I'm surprised that booster shots had eligibility requirements to begin with, it didn't seem like there was a boatload of general interest in getting one. For people outside of Cali, the requirements are pretty broad and the forms themselves state that no one will ask which of the requirements apply to you. One entire class of requirements is for working in "high-risk" settings. The medical risks requirements list is a mile long, and includes a BMI of >25 kg/m^2, which includes upwards of 75% of Americans. Now is prime time to be giving out boosters. With the holidays coming up, waning immunity from people who got their vaccines early, and another wave on the horizon, it makes complete sense to let as many people get boosters now, that way, they have maximum defence coming into the holidays.
- yupper32 5y ago
  I have lots of friends an family who want boosters, but don't think they qualify yet. Some do, especially under the BMI cutoff, but how are they supposed to know that? They're otherwise healthy. I don't qualify, but CA is giving me the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that I can just ignore the guidelines and go get one. No one will ask questions. The messaging is incredibly bad and inconsistent.
- muttantt 5y ago
  Perceived scarcity often generates demand that would not be there otherwise.
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  There are other countries where first and second doses are more sorely needed, perhaps?
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashbo... says that 20.9 billion doses have been secured, or about 2.6 doses for every person on earth. Now, distribution is undoubtedly still a problem in some regions of the world, but it does look like there are plenty of doses available. At this stage, I don't think taking an extra dose equates to someone else not getting one.
anonnyj 5y ago
I hope every last person here who thinks the vaccines are amazing gets themselves and their kids shots / boosters!
- Vecr 5y ago
  Children can't get boosters, what are you talking about? Paul Offit does not think anyone under 30 should. I suppose they could if they have a hardly functioning immune system, but a third dose might not work either.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    Hahaha, children can't get boosters yet. You do realize there always someone next to blame when the magical solution magically doesn’t work, right?
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  I don't think I'm getting a booster. I could be swayed one way or the other depending on new information that comes out. I already had Moderna at the start of the year which has the higher load among the vaccines and I'm not really at risk. I'd be interested to know the risk of myocarditis from a booster versus being exposed to the real virus once fully vaccinated.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  Thanks. I hope everyone still refusing Covid vaccines enjoys their time with the disease.
- giga_chad 5y ago
  They will once their vaxx passes are revoked.
gedy 5y ago
Many pharmacies scheduling apps/pages don't let you schedule a booster if you don't meet CDC, even in California.
- garren 5y ago
  I’ve seen this in CO too, but here the gov said that since Covid is spreading so quickly, that everybody is effectively on the front line or in a high risk setting. In that sense the CDC criteria is met. Since the criteria in an app is often just a handful of checkboxes, scheduling apps and pages don’t present a problem.
Arubis 5y ago
"Thanks" to the current case spike, the same is true in Colorado: https://coloradosun.com/2021/11/09/covid-booster-shot-eligibility-colorado/ https://coloradosun.com/2021/11/09/covid-booster-shot-eligib...
32gbsd 5y ago
I love boosters
anonymoushermit 5y ago
I'm sure this headline has nothing to do with the massive supply of expiring vials that pharmaceutical companies are desperately hoping to turn a profit on.
- kristopolous 5y ago
  We had a choice to make things government control without a profit motive, to ignore IP law and have a Trips waiver, to nationalize healthcare, and we said no to all of them and the result is a system where there's supposed to be a profit motive reason behind everything. Isn't this what everyone wanted? Everything being run "like a business" to maximize profits? Wasn't that how we all intentionally set it up? Shouldn't y'all be feverishly shaking the pom poms and doing backflips and squad cheers for capitalist efficiencies and the free market?
- thatswrong0 5y ago
  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 Probably has to do with the fact that the booster is effective.
  - giga_chad 5y ago
    That's what they say, Pfizer has a history of bribing doctors, falsifying study results, and suppressing results they don't like[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues
    - foogazi 5y ago
      Wait you are a 20 year old with high levels of vitamin D, low risk of death from covid[0], with an account created 3 days ago that ALSO has major doubts about a vaccine maker? Hmm [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29203902#29204901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29203902#29204901
      - Aurelius3 5y ago
vmception 5y ago
> People in California who are 18 and older are eligible for a COVID booster shot as long as at least six months have passed their second dose of the two-shot Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two months must have passed since their Johnson & Johnson shot. What's the protocol for six months having passed but also tested positive for COVID? Like, this guidance here is pretty clear, but it doesn't seem to be enough to judge personal risk tolerance.
giga_chad 5y ago
I'm unvaccinated, been working from the office the entire time, not planning to get it. As a healthy, young man, with healthy vitamin D levels, the risk of getting noticeable symptoms, let alone ending up in a hospital, is a nice round 0 (I ran the numbers, there were 0 such cases worldwide). I have also never been tested, or subject to any limitations regarding this status.
- sleavey 5y ago
  I did the same calculation and came to a similar conclusion. Here's one such calculator: https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation. There are others based on more recent data, as well as papers and government data with age-stratified hospitalisations and deaths by vaccination status. Many seem to have forgotten life is not risk free.
  - foogazi 5y ago
    All these years I could have been driving without a seat belt - my insurance company’s says I’m a low risk driver - and yet the DMV insists on the seat belt mandate
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - sleavey 5y ago
      We weren't talking about mandates, but I'll bite. The difference is you don't have to trust the government to know seat belts save lives; the law on seat belts is common sense to anyone of sound mind. On the other hand, show me anyone who can see that getting an injection of some vaccine of unknown (to the average recipient) content and function is common sense. Note that I'm NOT making ANY claims about the vaccine efficacy or danger of lack thereof, simply that a typical individual can't look at the clear liquid in the syringe and innately know that it saves lives. It necessarily requires faith in government or medical institutions or doctors who tell us they are safe. Seat belts don't require such faith, so such mandates can't be compared like for like.
yupper32 5y ago
This messaging is horrifically bad. No one in the CA government is directly saying everyone should get the booster it seems like. "Allow patients to self-determine their risk of exposure" -> ??? I'm not a doctor, why are you making me do that? "If you think you will benefit from getting a booster shot, I encourage you to go out and get it" -> ??? Everyone would technically benefit, why are you not just saying everyone? In another article: "Ghaly said that guidance is in line with the federal government’s eligibility rules for booster shots" -> ??? It's not! "Wanting a booster" is not one of the eligibility criteria. I'm going to get the booster soon, even though I don't qualify under CDC guidelines, to be clear. But only because CA is giving me the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that I can just ignore the guidelines and go get one. No one will ask questions.
- pkaye 5y ago
  Its not just California that is making it easy to qualify. I know many people get doses from CVS because they don't ask any questions about eligibility. My sister and her family all got booster doses because even boosters were approved.

49 points by bryan0 5y ago

Oh, whew!

Booster and office access has been such a ringing dissonance for me. For boosters, I'm "too healthy" and do not qualify under even the most generous reading of the CDC guidance. On office access, my office is still not open while the rest of my family has gone back to work/school. My spouse is higher risk and my kids only got their first shots last week. So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? What is the point anymore?

landryraccoon 5y ago
Are you complaining about working from home? If I never go back to the office I'm fine with it. Maybe it would help to work from a cafe, or even outside on a picnic table. You can tether to your phone. Of all the things I miss from pre-pandemic life, commuting in to the office is NOT one of them.
- Steltek 5y ago
  Yeah, actually. I biked to work. It was great exercise, physically and mentally. The change of scenery was a good shift and being downtown with lots of coworkers and people was invigorating. Biking was also pretty core to my identity. Not in a "spandex/lycra" way (don't own any) but it's probably one of the first things people would start with when describing me. Now that's all gone cuz I've got no where to go. A debate wouldn't be productive but let's just say a cafe or park is not a long term solution.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Are you saying the debate would go in wider and wider circles, maybe meander around a bit?
  - vmception 5y ago
    I actually am considering forming local only in person teams for tech projects/ventures, I think there is a market demand for it (and talent). That may just be a factor of my neighborhood, as many people that could re-locate, relocated to the same areas. Given all the commercial space available as companies vacated, its just the free market in action. What I'm finding is that people rejected one environment, but have not been given a framework to navigate an unstructured life. And like a familiar structure.
  - newbie789 5y ago
    Can’t you just bike for recreation? Biking is both “core to your identity” but also something you don’t do unless you strictly have to?
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    I know a lot of people who have biked or walked to start and the end work day, regardless of if they were working from home or an office.
  - mrighele 5y ago
    Note that you can still bike to work: take your bike, drive halfway to you workplace, come back home and start working. For some person having a ritual marking the beginning and the end of the workday can also be useful to balance work and personal life. This doesn't help with missing the coworkers of course, but depending on what kind of job and where they live maybe something can be done about that too ?
  - landryraccoon 5y ago
    I'm a biker too. I have more time for biking now that I'm not in the office - I can hop on the bike and choose a route in the morning before I start my day, or in the early evening after work is done. If anything, not being in the office should give you more time to exercise in the way you want to.
- outside1234 5y ago
  I want to go back to work "a little bit" - ie. once a week or so when we all rally there. I'm not looking for everyday, but one day a week would be nice to have more interactive discussions about the work that week etc.
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
  Not everyone has a bad office environment or commute they're trying to avoid
mulmen 5y ago
Does your spouse have a booster?
- Steltek 5y ago
  Yes, err obviously? Given a choice, she'd rather be the one that's home all day but that's sadly not to be.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    From the phrasing of your comment it wasn't clear to me if your spouse has: 1) A booster 2) A less restrictive workplace or perhaps an "essential" job. 3) A medical condition that precludes the vaccine.
outside1234 5y ago
You are protecting the company from liability. That's the only thing I can work out - they are worried about one person getting sick and dying on campus from a back to work mandate - then what happens?
- infamouscow 5y ago
  This is complete nonsense and only benefits the pockets of lawyers, pharma companies, and the media. If this reasoning was logically sound then the same should apply for all of the existing fatal diseases listed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics. Let's also not forget seasonal flu.
boplicity 5y ago
> So why the fuck am I, "the low risk one", stuck at home alone all day? Who the fuck am I protecting? It's not about you. I'm not convinced that boosters should be required, in order to go back to work. But, really, to answer your question: It's not about you. It's about the people you're around. At work. Just like everything else with COVID -- the reality is that we have to account for the affect on everyone, and not just ourselves. Individually, we have extremely low odds of suffering the worst from COVID. Collectively, hospitals have overflowed, 700,000+ people in the States have died, and many are suffering long-term health consequences. It's not about you. It's about everyone. That being said: I'm in Canada, where boosters are still uncommon. I've never heard of any booster requirements, just to go into the office.
- Steltek 5y ago
  You're missing the dissonance part: all the people around me, who are high risk, are at work or school. I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Also to clarify, I'm very much NOT arguing for forcing people to return to work or an in-person model of work. In fact, I quite like the "remote style" of work and would continue it even while in person. I just miss my commute and the scene.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    What are you arguing for? If co-workers don't wish to go back into the office even if they're allowed to (which is the situation at a lot of tech companies these days), what does that do for your commute and scene? (I do get some nostalgia for being with co-workers--and I'm certainly happy to be back to events again--but clearly there's a tradeoff that you and co-workers need to make.)
  - foogazi 5y ago
    > I am classed as low risk (= no booster) yet I'm perma-WFH. If it's not about me, what is it about? Do you work in a 1 person office? - are there others there and maybe management doesn’t want a full office everyday, have you asked them ? It’s not about you
  - 5y ago
wwweston 5y ago
Probably has more to do with how office is calculating their collective risks in business-as-usual on site than with your specific risk. And beyond that, limits on individual activity have as much to do with collective regional transmission rate as they do with individual risk (though CA numbers look pretty decent recently).
poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
Not sure how old kids are or if you really have a choice at this stage, but it does seem Germany, France, Scandanavia, Taiwan have halted at least Moderna for the youth and now even Pfizer (Taiwan). Saying because people in my family didn't know about this, and would have wanted this relatively new information to help make a decision.
ryandrake 5y ago
Like most situations (at least in CA) involving the pandemic, doing it a wrong way is easier than doing it the right way. All the people I know who got their boosters simply lied and said they were eligible. Nobody checks. Just like back when the vaccines first emerged: The easiest way to get one early was to just lie. Nobody checked back then, either. Ironically, also the easiest way to comply with any vaccine mandate, so far, has been to just lie and say you are vaccinated and/or present a fake card. You can basically do anything, with a white piece of cardboard that says "Mickey Mouse" on it. Nobody verifies anything. It's all incompetence and blind trust from officials, top to bottom, which incentivizes taking the easier, dishonest path. It's like getting pulled over and being able to say "trust me officer, I've got a license" and they believe you. Honesty and waiting your turn buys you nothing. Total incompetence.
slg 5y ago
There are three parts of the equation:: - Your personal risk if you caught COVID - The risk that you would spread COVID to other people if you caught COVID - How productive you can be at home compared to your office/school Your overall health only impacts the first one which is why you haven't been eligible for a booster. You still have just as much risk of spreading COVID as anyone else so unless you would be much more efficient at the office/school, it still makes sense to stay home. For example, I would bet you would agree that your kids are getting more out of going to school rather than doing it remotely so that third variable shifts the overall equation to favor them returning to in person schooling.
armchairhacker 5y ago
Lots of people are justifying this as if it's logical, but ultimately rules like this are the result of bureaucracy. Most likely your office is still WFH because nobody cares. Maybe nobody else wants to go back, maybe the company saves money, maybe someone high-up is still nervous about covid, probably a combination of those three. It's similar to how at most places there are signs everywhere saying "please remain 6 feet apart", "due to covid ..." and people don't even follow these rules. Nobody bothered to take the signs down. Ultimately if you're vaccinated, there's not really a point to masking or social distancing. The exception is masking in public areas like supermarkets and doctors' offices where sick people have to go and it's not a big deal. Or in areas where there is hospitals are overflowing and there are too many unvaccinated, like earlier in the year.
tinus_hn 5y ago
It’s not for you to understand, citizen. Just do as you’re told!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Turing_Machine 5y ago

I see nothing wrong with this, now that the vaccines appear to be in plentiful supply. If you think you need the extra protection, why not? It would have been different back in the early days, when there wasn't enough to go around. Then it made sense to restrict vaccines to the most vulnerable (elderly, people in poor health, people who are exposed a lot in the course of their employment...)

throaway46546 5y ago
The recommendation wasn't about vaccine supply. It was about the dubious benefit of boosters for the general population.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  It doesn't matter whether the benefits are dubious or not, IMO. People take all kinds of OTC (and prescription) drugs for dubious benefits. If there's plenty to go around, why not let people decide that for themselves? Edit: https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashbo... 20.9 billion doses have been secured. If someone can't get a first or second dose, it's because their government is fucked up in some way, not because there is a shortage of the raw vaccines.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    Much of the world still can't get their first shots. > Rich countries have about twice the population of low-income countries, yet they have received about 50 times as many Covid-19 vaccine doses [0] [0] https://www.vox.com/22759707/covid-19-vaccine-gap-covax-rich-poor-countries-boosters https://www.vox.com/22759707/covid-19-vaccine-gap-covax-rich...
  - sojournerc 5y ago
    OTC drugs have gone through _long-term_ studies. 12 months is not long-term.
  - throaway46546 5y ago

idlewords 5y ago

You can get a booster shot pretty much anywhere in the US by self-declaring you're in a high risk category. Since that includes being overweight, a lot of people can get their boosters in full good conscience. Walgreens is one place where there's almost no wait.

thehappypm 5y ago
Former smokers too.
Steltek 5y ago
The CDC guidance can be generously interpreted to include anyone who works in person and not remotely as well.
giga_chad 5y ago
Better to just lose weight, that protects you from many other preventable diseases, is risk free, and easy to do.
- idlewords 5y ago
  It doesn't protect you from covid.
  - zyemuzu 5y ago
    Being a healthy weight is an excellent way to lower your chances of developing the more serious symptoms of COVID.
    - idlewords 5y ago
      What an odd place this site is. We have a vaccine that works great, but still people have to find a way to nerdfight.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    Losing weight absolutely protects you from serious COVID19 effects. Weight is a comorbidity.

mywittyname 5y ago

I'm surprised that booster shots had eligibility requirements to begin with, it didn't seem like there was a boatload of general interest in getting one. For people outside of Cali, the requirements are pretty broad and the forms themselves state that no one will ask which of the requirements apply to you. One entire class of requirements is for working in "high-risk" settings. The medical risks requirements list is a mile long, and includes a BMI of >25 kg/m^2, which includes upwards of 75% of Americans. Now is prime time to be giving out boosters. With the holidays coming up, waning immunity from people who got their vaccines early, and another wave on the horizon, it makes complete sense to let as many people get boosters now, that way, they have maximum defence coming into the holidays.

yupper32 5y ago
I have lots of friends an family who want boosters, but don't think they qualify yet. Some do, especially under the BMI cutoff, but how are they supposed to know that? They're otherwise healthy. I don't qualify, but CA is giving me the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that I can just ignore the guidelines and go get one. No one will ask questions. The messaging is incredibly bad and inconsistent.
muttantt 5y ago
Perceived scarcity often generates demand that would not be there otherwise.
lr4444lr 5y ago
There are other countries where first and second doses are more sorely needed, perhaps?
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashbo... says that 20.9 billion doses have been secured, or about 2.6 doses for every person on earth. Now, distribution is undoubtedly still a problem in some regions of the world, but it does look like there are plenty of doses available. At this stage, I don't think taking an extra dose equates to someone else not getting one.

anonnyj 5y ago

I hope every last person here who thinks the vaccines are amazing gets themselves and their kids shots / boosters!

Vecr 5y ago
Children can't get boosters, what are you talking about? Paul Offit does not think anyone under 30 should. I suppose they could if they have a hardly functioning immune system, but a third dose might not work either.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Hahaha, children can't get boosters yet. You do realize there always someone next to blame when the magical solution magically doesn’t work, right?
jimmaswell 5y ago
I don't think I'm getting a booster. I could be swayed one way or the other depending on new information that comes out. I already had Moderna at the start of the year which has the higher load among the vaccines and I'm not really at risk. I'd be interested to know the risk of myocarditis from a booster versus being exposed to the real virus once fully vaccinated.
tomjakubowski 5y ago
Thanks. I hope everyone still refusing Covid vaccines enjoys their time with the disease.
giga_chad 5y ago
They will once their vaxx passes are revoked.

gedy 5y ago

Many pharmacies scheduling apps/pages don't let you schedule a booster if you don't meet CDC, even in California.

garren 5y ago
I’ve seen this in CO too, but here the gov said that since Covid is spreading so quickly, that everybody is effectively on the front line or in a high risk setting. In that sense the CDC criteria is met. Since the criteria in an app is often just a handful of checkboxes, scheduling apps and pages don’t present a problem.

Arubis 5y ago

"Thanks" to the current case spike, the same is true in Colorado: https://coloradosun.com/2021/11/09/covid-booster-shot-eligibility-colorado/ https://coloradosun.com/2021/11/09/covid-booster-shot-eligib...

32gbsd 5y ago

I love boosters

anonymoushermit 5y ago

I'm sure this headline has nothing to do with the massive supply of expiring vials that pharmaceutical companies are desperately hoping to turn a profit on.

kristopolous 5y ago
We had a choice to make things government control without a profit motive, to ignore IP law and have a Trips waiver, to nationalize healthcare, and we said no to all of them and the result is a system where there's supposed to be a profit motive reason behind everything. Isn't this what everyone wanted? Everything being run "like a business" to maximize profits? Wasn't that how we all intentionally set it up? Shouldn't y'all be feverishly shaking the pom poms and doing backflips and squad cheers for capitalist efficiencies and the free market?
thatswrong0 5y ago
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 Probably has to do with the fact that the booster is effective.
- giga_chad 5y ago
  That's what they say, Pfizer has a history of bribing doctors, falsifying study results, and suppressing results they don't like[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues
  - foogazi 5y ago
    Wait you are a 20 year old with high levels of vitamin D, low risk of death from covid[0], with an account created 3 days ago that ALSO has major doubts about a vaccine maker? Hmm [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29203902#29204901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29203902#29204901
    - Aurelius3 5y ago

vmception 5y ago

> People in California who are 18 and older are eligible for a COVID booster shot as long as at least six months have passed their second dose of the two-shot Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or two months must have passed since their Johnson & Johnson shot. What's the protocol for six months having passed but also tested positive for COVID? Like, this guidance here is pretty clear, but it doesn't seem to be enough to judge personal risk tolerance.

giga_chad 5y ago

I'm unvaccinated, been working from the office the entire time, not planning to get it. As a healthy, young man, with healthy vitamin D levels, the risk of getting noticeable symptoms, let alone ending up in a hospital, is a nice round 0 (I ran the numbers, there were 0 such cases worldwide). I have also never been tested, or subject to any limitations regarding this status.

sleavey 5y ago
I did the same calculation and came to a similar conclusion. Here's one such calculator: https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation. There are others based on more recent data, as well as papers and government data with age-stratified hospitalisations and deaths by vaccination status. Many seem to have forgotten life is not risk free.
- foogazi 5y ago
  All these years I could have been driving without a seat belt - my insurance company’s says I’m a low risk driver - and yet the DMV insists on the seat belt mandate
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - sleavey 5y ago
    We weren't talking about mandates, but I'll bite. The difference is you don't have to trust the government to know seat belts save lives; the law on seat belts is common sense to anyone of sound mind. On the other hand, show me anyone who can see that getting an injection of some vaccine of unknown (to the average recipient) content and function is common sense. Note that I'm NOT making ANY claims about the vaccine efficacy or danger of lack thereof, simply that a typical individual can't look at the clear liquid in the syringe and innately know that it saves lives. It necessarily requires faith in government or medical institutions or doctors who tell us they are safe. Seat belts don't require such faith, so such mandates can't be compared like for like.

yupper32 5y ago

This messaging is horrifically bad. No one in the CA government is directly saying everyone should get the booster it seems like. "Allow patients to self-determine their risk of exposure" -> ??? I'm not a doctor, why are you making me do that? "If you think you will benefit from getting a booster shot, I encourage you to go out and get it" -> ??? Everyone would technically benefit, why are you not just saying everyone? In another article: "Ghaly said that guidance is in line with the federal government’s eligibility rules for booster shots" -> ??? It's not! "Wanting a booster" is not one of the eligibility criteria. I'm going to get the booster soon, even though I don't qualify under CDC guidelines, to be clear. But only because CA is giving me the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that I can just ignore the guidelines and go get one. No one will ask questions.

pkaye 5y ago
Its not just California that is making it easy to qualify. I know many people get doses from CVS because they don't ask any questions about eligibility. My sister and her family all got booster doses because even boosters were approved.