I got my booster a couple of weeks ago, had a sore arm for 12 hours and that was it. I'm still angry at the dick who tried to stop me getting it though!

Right now you only get your booster if you're over 55 or are vulnerable and had your 2nd jab 6 months ago. I got a text exactly 6 months and 1 day after my 2nd jab to say "you can now book your booster online". Off I go and book my booster at the local walk in centre. Niall had both his jabs done here, I'd had mine done at a surgery further away. He'd had good service there and it's 5 minutes from the flat so thought why not. The booking system is notoriously bad for not letting you book even when you're eligible so the fact I managed to book means I most definitely qualified for a booster (plus having a rare disease you learn to research exactly what you're due for anything because medical professionals won't have a clue due to you being so rare). The confirmation of booking says you just need to take your booking reference and a face covering with you.

Anyway I turned up for my appointment. Mum was here too (she got over for 2 weeks, yay!) and they let her come in with me which maybe confused things. First lady let me through fine, gave me my form, sent me over to a seating area to fill the form in. Guy comes over to check I fill the form out correctly, all fine, no issues here. Send us over to a guy at a stand-up table. This is where the problem starts. He reads my date of birth. "1984? Is that your date of birth?" He keeps looking at Mum every so often. "Yes, it is." He then starts questioning why I'm there as it's only over 55s who are getting the booster now. I tell him it's also those who are vulnerable. He starts on about the vulnerable need a third dose, not a booster. I spent ten minutes telling him I'd had a text (and show him it) to say I need a booster and that I don't need a third dose as I'm not immunosuppressed, I'm no more likely to get the disease than any healthy person but if I do, I'll get major complications. He keeps trying to tell me I need to wait for my age group. I tell him my age group had barely started their first dose 6 months ago and I'm not waiting until 9 months after my second jab to get my booster. He goes off to ask someone, comes back and says I can't have it that day. I keep arguing. Eventually he turns my form over, points to a box and says "Write your condition in there and sign it". So I wrote a detailed description. He asked if I have proof with me of my condition. I say no, I wasn't told I had to have proof of my illness (thinking about it afterwards I did, I had my emergency injection kit on me and my steroid dependancy card). He then wandered off towards the vaccine area, told me to follow and said "Ok, you can have it done today... IF you have this condition."

Honestly I was (and still am) seething. If you're going to work in a vaccine centre, learn about all the rules, don't just go by age when it's not the only criteria. He kept saying the system sends texts out to everyone once they get to 6 months post-second dose without thinking that's because only those who are six months post second dose already need the booster! It's particularly frustrating as they keep complaining people aren't taking up the booster at the rate they should be. Probably because everyone is getting turned away by knobs like him. It's hardly a fun experience or an addictive drug, I'm not there trying to 'score'. Wanker. *ahem* sorry for the rant.

Austria has gone into full lockdown (or is about to) again. They had done a lockdown that was only for unvaccinated but that didn't work so everyone is having to go into it now. Britain... honestly I've given up following what's going on. I think our wave is slowing down a little but it's still not exactly great.

We had planned to go to the cinema to see Dune. Would've been our first trip there in about 3 years but the prices have gone up to nearly £10 per person so we'll just wait. We stopped going to the other cinema because it was that price and this newer, nicer one was much cheaper but the old one has closed now so of course the new one has increased prices. Niall was the one who wanted to go and I would've still gone but he said no for that price. I'm never fussed by the cinema anyway.

Not sure if you've seen but the UK has approved an anti-viral drug to be used if you get covid. I think it's for use before you need hospitalisation to try and keep you out of hospital.

If someone had pulled that eligibility crap on me, I'd file a complaint... either via their corporate office, or via government forms if it was a government facility. I'm too old to put up with shit like that any more. However, nobody here cares... boosters were approved federally for all adults on Friday morning, but we'd made our appointments a few days prior. However, it was for "over 55" or "vulnerable"... and reading the fine print (at least on CVS's website), vulnerable includes obesity (which is like more than half this country) and even "current or former smoker". That's so nebulous you could probably take a puff of a cigarette and immediately qualify.

I saw there was a pill that can be given to anyone that comes up positive for Covid that significantly reduces the chance of serious complications. Great for overloaded hospitals and emergency rooms, less useful for people like us that are actually handling this situation like adults.

I doubt Dune will still be in theaters in 2 weeks around here, but if it is, that's a great idea.

I do intend to put a complaint in, odds are he's just a volunteer but I bet loads of people have been turned away. If Mum hadn't been with me I'd probably have stopped arguing much sooner. Mum thinks the person next to us was doing the same thing as it looked like it was another elderly mother with her son, probably about my age, who was the one in for the booster and they were getting 'checked' as well.

Over here obesity, although definitely known to up your risks of complications, doesn't put you on the vulnerable list as it's not an actual medical condition. Same with smokers I think. Unless you actually have a lung issue caused by it then tough luck, you're considered fit so you have to wait for your age range. But I'm not aware of there being any shortage of vaccines (not that I'm paying attention) so honestly I'm thinking they should just let everyone have it. At this rate they will anyway; last week they decided everyone 40+ can have a booster so it won't be long until 18+ are included methinks. And they're giving teenagers a second dose, which they weren't going to do originally.

I'll keep fingers crossed for you that Dune is still around when you fancy going out!

Shiny expressed an interested in seeing the new Ghost Busters movie. I read it was terrible, but hey, whatever, I'm less interested in the movie than I am in just getting out of the house for a bit. I also wouldn't mind seeing Eternals. I'm sure it'll be fine.

I understand the hesitancy of the WHO and hence national health organizations about giving out boosters and extra doses when most of the world hasn't been vaccinated yet. I'm definitely a proponent for getting as many people jabbed worldwide as possible. However, letting tons of vaccine doses go bad doesn't make sense either.

Ah yes I hadn't considered that, but I would assume with the wonderful way our government works, once a dose is at a centre it's either used there or just wasted. Because why ship anything back?

I'd forgotten about Eternals, that does look interesting.

I went out to dinner tonight for the first time in about 5 months. It was nice. We went to a very high class restaurant with Shiny, her dad and her step mother. Hooters. Very posh. I really do like hot wings though

hahaha nice. Back in the little market town I grew up in (and spent my teenage years in) the only nightclub in town was called Hooters. Everyone is always disappointed it wasn't one of THOSE Hooters.

lol... I really do like that restaurant. Besides the scantily clad ladies, the food isn't bad. There's another breastaraunt called twin peaks ( ) that's pretty decent, but I think that one may have gone out of business.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience Pev At least you got the shot in the end!! Fuckers. I don't even understand why you're going to volunteer if you're going to be this obnoxious.

Yeah, things are going to shit everywhere in Europe pretty much and the vises are being tightned. Soon we'll be in a proper lockdown again I'm sure. Sigh. I'm getting sick and tired of it all tbh. Of course I don't want to get covid but part of me is a bit like "if I get it and don't have too many problems then good, at least I won't have to worry about this shit for a while anymore". I only got my second shot in August so I'm not getting boosted any time soon, and as much as I see the sense in doing it I also kind of resent the idea of endless boosters. Government has been mishandling this shit from the start and now that it's clear the vaccines (at least the current ones) aren't a long term solution to end the pandemic they keep harking back to the only answer they know - use the vaccines again and do more lockdowns. For the second summer in a row they pretended like the drop in cases in the summer was due to their measures/vaccines when it clearly was just seasonal.

So yeah I'm a bit salty about it all. If this is causing me to miss Christmas with my family I'll be one unhappy camper. It may be one of the last ones with everyone there.

Interestingly enough Sweden seems to be doing relatively fine....maybe herd immunity was the way to go after all?

Yeah we're starting to get a bit lockdowny again. Well we're not but we have 3 of this new Omnicron variant over in the UK so for the next 3 weeks we have to actually wear masks in shops and on public transport again, whereas it's been a choice for months. Of course reviewing it in 3 weeks will be just in time to 'cancel' Christmas if they want. Although the Christmas adverts have all been pissing me off already this year, going on about how it won't be cancelled this year... well it wasn't last year either, hence we had 4 months of lockdown following it So yeah, happy times again. Although there are some scientists saying this new variant might spread more easily and may not respond to vaccines as well but seems to give milder symptoms.

Oh the government made me laugh in a not-humourous way as well. One of the judges on Strictly Come Dancing lives in Germany most of the time and she was over there last week when she got contacted by track and trace so she can't come back over until 30th Nov and had to miss this week for judging because her vaccination certificate is German. But had she been over here already we'd apparently have accepted her certificate and, provided she tested negative (which she had 3 times), she wouldn't have to isolate and could wander the streets freely. You do have to wonder about some of the logic.

It's the government. Logic takes second fiddle to rules and regulations (and theater).

Yea, omicron is interesting. Still not much known about it, but it may be more transmissible, and the symptoms may be much milder. If that's the case it may crowd out the more deadly strains. People would still be getting sick a lot, but it could make that much less of an issue and could hasten a return to normality. At least, a normality where in addition to the cold and flu, there's seasonal covid. Only time will tell. However, that's not the worst possible scenario.

Had Covid a month or so ago. Really shitty experience. It's like a flu i guess, but instead of peaking for a couple of days, it's a long 7 day peak. Lost my sense of taste and smell, but it's coming back now. The worst thing wad that after like day 5, you start to feel down about it psychologically. In other words, you start to get pissed off about the fact you're unwell.

Well, that was my experience anyway.

Wasn't vaccinated at the time, and still not. If i could turn back time and get vaccinated, would I? Hell no.

I don't know about you guys, but I think this Covid shit is an ultra hoax given the way it's being handled.
Yes, it's a real virus.
Was it manufactured? I don't know. Maybe.
Does the risk justify the government's reaction, no, i don't think so.
Is it being used to re-structure some socio-economic shit? Yeah, probably.

Yeah as suboptimal as it is, Omicron definitely is the best out of a bad bunch. I think we can safely say that by now. In most countries the infection rates are multiples of the highest ever rates previously, but numbers of people on ICU and getting ventilated are way way lower and have actually been going down in the weeks of Omicron hitting. And the numbers are staggering. In France we're talking 300k cases a day, so counting asymptomatic cases and people who just aren't getting tested you're likely close to a million per day. On a population of 67 million. Some people have rated it as being as infection as measles, and measles are ridiculously infectious.

Clearly though, this extreme spike in cases will also mean it burns out more quickly. Which might make for a relatively quiet spring and summer if the population gets massive amounts of immunity from these infections. Because whatever people feed us about the effectiveness of vaccines, an actual infection does give you a broader immunity than vaccination. At least the vaccination with the mRNA vaccines which focus narrowly on some features of the virus. It's that last part and Omicron's relative mildness as well as its extreme infectiousness which make me wonder if there's a point in getting boosted anymore. We're all gonna get it anyway, at some point, vaccinated or not. It's that crazy. With Delta and co that wasn't an inevitability yet. So if this had been Delta I would have definitely gotten the booster soonish. But now I don't know. If I have to go back into work soon and take the train regularly it's inconceivable I won't be exposed to it.

Many of my colleagues have had it now and they seemed to range from a flu to the sniffles. They are all double vaccinated or boosted I think. It's only been 4 months since I got my second shot too. So holding off for now. If I die from Omicron you'll know what happened.

@ Derf, I think by now all the evidence points towards a lab escape, likely from the Wuhan institute of virology. The media doesn't really play it up too much but there seems to be a growing but slow consensus it came from a lab. Not on purpose, but accidentally. The people who are trying hard to obscure this also seem to be deeply involved in the research that was being done there so have a very good reason to not throw suspicions on it.

As for elites using the pandemic to push through some reforms that they otherwise would have never gotten away with, for sure. I also don't believe in vaccine mandates, knowing what we know now. Ie that it's hardly a perfect means to stop people from getting infected or transmitting the disease. If it did, I might have been ok with it. But it clearly doesn't. Maybe another one will in the future though.

But I don't believe that things like masks and vaccine passports are part of some greater plan to control people either. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they won't be around for too much longer once Omicron has burned through most of the population and the numbers drop. That's not a certainty by any means, but a hope. I like to believe the government has little to gain by tanking the economy. I believe in incompetence and stupidity rather than malice.

My family has been now infected with covid. Weirdly my two tests with nearly two days in between have both been negative. But I have hardly any voice to speak with. It could be that I rolled a critical 20 and caught the flu and as far as I understand these two don't play ball, it's either one or the other. Anyway I'm gonna take the pcr test once I feel a bit better.

Ugh sorry to hear that Peltz, hope you recover quickly