TBH I just keep coming back to this thread because it feels like it’s probably going to be the first place to inform me when my kids can finally get vaccines. Keep fighting the good fight y’all, I appreciate you.
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My state just announced an outdoor mask requirement (where social distancing is not possible) starting Friday.
I’m so tired.
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Can someone explain to me why it is harmful to get the booster shots too early?
I saw that mentioned in an article, but they didn’t really say why
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I think the cascading effect of you will have those antibodies wear off earlier?
I think to get the full effect of a booster shot your immune system needs to go back to baseline and put the first shot into long term memory. Getting a second shot 3-4 weeks after the first one means your immune system is still in the middle of reacting to the first shot, and your immune system isn’t practicing “fight this from scratch,” it’s practicing “oh yeah we’re still fighting this, ramp it up again.”
Anecdotally, some of the 3 part shots that give lifelong immunity (like hep b and guardasil) the boosters are 6 months and 2 years.
I’ve been speculating that part of the reason breakthrough cases look better in the UK than in Israel is because the UK had a bigger gap between doses. But that’s pure speculation that I haven’t seen any data or even other scientists speculate about.
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The article I read basically said if you get it too soon it’s ineffective, like, essentially “didn’t happen” level.
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Oh yeah if you get it like a week or two after the first one (aka earlier than tested and approved for), then your body is already full of spike protein and your immune system is already figuring out how to respond. Dumping more spike protein in just means your body is doing the exact same reaction. It might help a little bit for antibody levels, the same way that a bad case of COVID tends to give higher antibodies than an asymptomatic case, but you’re not giving your body any new information.
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I’ve just seen a lot of people going for their 3rd shot already…and they aren’t close to 8 months now. (For most of these people, 8 months would be December - February.)
I WISH my husband could get one before he goes to Mexico. (I really don’t want him going anymore with how things are going. Really crossing my fingers the trip gets cancelled…but I’m sure it won’t.)
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There’s not really any evidence that antibody levels decline before 6-8 months anyway, so by getting it too early those people are 1) fixing a problem that doesn’t exist (for people without immune compromise, originally the boosters were for people who might not have responded or responded strongly to the first two shots) and 2) potentially compromising their long term immunity.
On the other hand, timing vaccine boosters is hard to do totally quantitatively. You can’t really recruit a bunch of people and give 100 of them the booster every week for a year and then wait a year and test antibody levels in the middle of the pandemic. Even just pushing the original vaccine trials to 6-8 weeks would have delayed the results/filing until January because the entire trial would have been a month longer. That’s a trade off that would have caused a lot more death overall. So I think there’s a lot of “this is what works for other vaccines, let’s try it” rather than “we tried every option and this timing is definitely the best.”
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I tried to find these in a topics search, but someone posted great masks for kids (95s? Idk the lingo…) I think it was @mariposa? A friend was saying that double masking with a disposable and a cloth is a good way to protect kids. We’ll see how my 2yr feels about that… he keeps on one mask, but two might be a lot.
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I don’t think there’s one right answer about the timing of the boosters. For example, Israel was recommending everyone over 60, then 50, then 30 get a booster 5 months after their second dose due to 1) their current delta surge 2) weaker immune responses to the vaccine in older people 3) higher covid risk of older people. They’re starting to see it work, so it seems like it did help after that shorter time frame: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-covid-19-vaccine-boosters-show-signs-taming-delta-2021-08-24/
I’m pretty sure America’s 8 month recommendation was made so that higher risk people will get the booster first - we’re coming up on 8 months since healthcare workers and nursing home residents got their second shots. I don’t think it would hurt to get it slightly earlier, as long as it really has been months since the first round. But it also wouldn’t hurt to wait until 8+ months for lower risk people, just to extend coverage as long as possible.
Anecdotally, my 75 year old MIL got a booster this week, 5 months out from her second shot. Her doctor thought she was high risk enough that it was worth getting it earlier, plus she has to travel to a medium risk covid location soon to take care of some things for her mother’s estate.
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KN94 are the ones from Korea I think, we just ordered some in case of fires. They were slow to ship though even with Prime.
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We like these but they are out of stock. https://wellbefore.com/products/kids-kn95-fda-5-layers-individually-wrapped?variant=32916338049153
I do not have my kids double-mask. I have never been able to tolerate it myself and I have doubts about their ability–even at 9 and 10–to get two masks on and off for outside time and lunch. These are some conflicting things I have read about kids masks:
-The best mask is the one your kid will keep on
-Cloth masks are not adequate; your kids should wear disposable surgical-type masks
-Kids should not wear KN95s because they aren’t really designed/tested for kids and are hard to tolerate–even healthcare workers don’t wear them all day usually.
I have landed on surgical masks for my 10 year old because KN95s is a little $$$ and seems like overkill for school, but he prefers disposable to cloth. 9yo prefers cloth (homemade) BUT his cloth masks are mostly double-layer cotton with a booster layer of nonwoven interfacing and a nose wire, not the single-layer synthetic garbage that his school has been handing out (those are emergency backup only).
My 10yo cried last night because I told him he couldn’t wash his KN95. It’s a tough time to be a kid. He hasn’t been in school since March 2020, this is his first time masking all day, and he “forgot how uncomfortable the chairs are”–he had wiggle chairs for 2nd and 3rd grades but I guess they don’t have them for 5th grade 
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For other parents of young kids, how do you start getting them to mask? My toddler will rip his off as soon as I put it on. He also will not wear a hat.
He’s turning 2 in a few months, and as far as I know airlines will require him to wear a mask? We’re still tentatively planning to fly across the country to meet relatives over the holidays but I dunno….
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You might be looking for this post up thread: Covid-19 discussion
There’s also this spreadsheet someone with an engineering background made after testing them himself, it has a column for ages which should help with sizing questions, all the masks are KN95 or similar (no cloth masks) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i06OAItoOwIUaMjElr8mhh0Rw-it6WL-ODIQMZUOQxE/edit?fbclid=IwAR0qsK8IVHAR1u6S46KgF84x1vBe0hZWqckt0bgGwHms5rlF33405yr-imE#gid=0
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Just keep trying and being consistent. We started by masking some stuffed animals and we kept putting them on when he needed them and he saw us masking a lot.
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We got our kids to wear masks by starting in small amounts, just a few minutes at a time. Then a bit longer.
We tied it to activities they enjoyed. “We can go to the children’s museum, but if you take the mask off, you have to leave.”
My 4-year old wore one full time during 3-year old preschool, and it was mostly a peer pressure thing. Everyone else did it, she did too. She’s required to wear shoes, shirt, and pants during class, and a mask too. It became a lot harder when the school made it optional and I was the only parent who opted in, we gave up. Now it is mandatory again, she hasn’t said a word. At stores, I wear my mask, she does too, there are no complaints.
My 2-year old it’s harder. He’s almost 2 1/2 and it’s getting a bit better. Part of the key is to have A LOT of masks. They become spit soaked in about 30 minutes. So longer than that, I need to give him a new one. We did some bribery. “Wear this mask to the doctor, get a sticker”. “Keep it on at the store, have a lollypop”, plus the whole “we can only do the fun thing if you keep it on.”
But mostly it’s why I kept wearing one even when I was vaccinated. If I’m not wearing it, why would they expect to?
Oh, and we haven’t managed hats at all.
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Oh something I typed then it ended up getting deleted - my six year old prefers his KN95 mask (from Vida if anyone wants a rec) because they structure of it keeps it off his mouth. He has some cute cloth masks but he would absent mindedly lick them or whatever so they’d get wet, plus we’re still in the depths of summer so sweat is definitely a problem too after recess. After a week or so with a cloth mask he tried the KN95 one and hasn’t asked about his fun, colorful cloth masks since then.
I’ve been doing one mask per week since I think that’s about the number of hours they’re supposed to be good for, then Vida supplied an envelope for us to send the used masks back to them and they get recycled into some sort of non-mask thing.
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Kids. 
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