![]() Roughly half the kids got both shots in the same arm the others received one on each side. I dug around for studies examining the consequences of the one-versus-two-arm choice and found only one: a Canadian trial from 2003, which vaccinated a few hundred sixth-graders at two dozen middle schools against group C meningitis and hepatitis B at the same time. He was so knocked out by the fever and chills that came with his COVID-flu-shot combo, he couldn’t have cared less which arms got the shots. Also, for people like my husband-who’s prone to very heavy vaccine side effects-the choice may not matter at all. Two shots on one side might be expected to double how sore that arm will get, though the experience of each vaccine recipient will depend on a bevy of factors, including the ingredients in the shots and that person’s infection and vaccination history, as well as their immune-system health. The deciding logic here should be pretty intuitive, Permar told me. Read: America’s fall booster plan has a fatal paradox ![]() Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir, a pharmacist at Loma Linda University, says she generally recommends that her patients get the vaccines on separate sides “for comfort.” Last year, she opted to get the flu shot and a COVID booster within a few inches of each other, and “I wanted to chop my arm off,” she told me. Louis, told me he’d prefer to have two slightly sore arms to one totally dead one. Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Several experts said they’d follow the White House protocol of splitting shots left and right. On the other hand, we’ve got Team Divide-and-Conquer. ![]() “Personally, I’d rather have one arm that’s slightly uncomfortable than both,” Goel told me. Sallie Permar, a pediatrician at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Stephanie Langel, an immunologist at Duke University, both said they’d probably get both shots in the same shoulder so would Rishi Goel, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania. On the one hand (sorry), there are the vaccine double-downers. For the millions of Americans who will be getting two-shot appointments by fall’s end, they told me, the choice really does come down to personal preference in the absence of clear data: You’ve just gotta pick a side. When I posed this puzzle to immunologists, vaccinologists, and pharmacists, I got back a lot of hems and haws. Or perhaps the same-side shots would have made the soreness in my left arm way worse. Maybe my annoyance would have been lessened. And it did make me wonder what would have happened if I’d ignored Jha’s teleological advice and gotten both jabs in the same arm. Reaching high shelves was hard putting on deodorant was worse. ![]() I spent the next day or so nursing not one but two achy upper arms. That’s how I got immunized last week at my local CVS: COVID shot on the left, flu shot on the right. “I really believe this is why God gave us two arms.” “It’s actually a good idea,” he told the press. “Millions” of Americans, he said, would be flocking to pharmacies for the newest version of the COVID vaccine in September and October, at the same appointment where they’d get their yearly flu shot. At a press briefing earlier this month, Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID czar, laid out some pretty lofty expectations for America’s immunity this fall.
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