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Comment by kenmacd | Hacker News Reader

> I would love to know how they're tracking this

Heath cards. You're welcome to attempt to get a third dose.

> I also mixed [] and had a terrible reaction

And I had the same and had a terrible reaction, including vomiting. Both our situations are anecdotal though. I haven't seen any research showing that the reactions to mixing mRNA vaccines is worse.

> I then discovered the CDC does not advise mixing

Not for any known negative reason though. The WHO is fine with it, and so is the UK, Spain, and Germany (among others).

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Hey, thanks for the reply! Honestly, I think that they would give me a third dose if I told them it was my second verbally when I went to the clinic. Infact, I had a discussion during my first dose when they asked me if they could store my information. I said "aren't you already tracking that via my health card" and was told no it was for OHIP. I don't know the distinction there or what that means but they told me I could not be vaccinated unless I agreed to the data collection. They also said not to lose my vaccination record that was printed off. This was a government mass vaccination site. You're right about it being anecdotal but I sometimes feel like anecdotal is what a lot of the government is going on with their vaccine program. Let's be honest, the broader effects of the vaccinations is yet to be known. It's probably nothing, I agree, but if I was anti vaxx the amount of contradicting and confusing information over the last 8 months would definitely solidify my belief.

Did your province not give you an option to report followup symptoms? In Ontario, at the time of shot, we could opt-in to followup symptom reporting. Doing so got you a mail like this, which was followed by a pair of surveys, several months apart:

> The Canadian Immunization Research Network is performing active surveillance for adverse events after immunization against COVID-19. You are being invited to take part because you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and agreed to be contacted about vaccine studies. The purpose of the study is to see how often health events occur after COVID-19 vaccination. If you might be interested in helping with this surveillance, please visit https://CANVAS-COVID.ca for additional information on how to participate. Your participation is entirely voluntary.

> Not for any known negative reason though. The WHO is fine with it, and so is the UK, Spain, and Germany (among others).

This is literally fake news.[1]

“It’s a little bit of a dangerous trend here. We are in a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as mix and match,” Soumya Swaminathan told an online briefing.[2]

[1]https://globalnews.ca/news/8021692/mixing-covid-19-vaccines-... [2]https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

The scientist in question is warning against INDIVIDUALS mixing and matching, and saying public health agencies should make the decision.

Which makes sense because while there is no evidence against mixing and matching, there is not very strong evidence in favor either.

So the mix and match should only be done at the guidance of a public health agency which might, for example, recognize that due to a constraint in the supply of Moderna doses, they may be better off taking the slight risk that mixing might cause some issues in a small number of people (again there is no evidence that this is the case), than the much greater risk caused by a large percentage of the population not being fully vaccinated.

The CDC therefore does not recommend mixing because over the past few months the US has acquired enough doses to vaccinate everybody in the country which is not the case for all but a handful of other countries.

> Not for any known negative reason though.

That statement applies to most medical interventions before testing. If a public health organization thinks they’ll need to mix doses, they should have the foresight to sponsor a trial. It’s very ethically questionable to foist untested interventions on your citizenry.

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