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collin's avatar

Anecdotally, I think part of the problem might be from the conversations between vaccinated people. I work at a hospital where we all got it extremely early, opting to just hit everyone instead of trying to tier employees. Just as a natural outcome of allotments, some of us were Pfizer and some were Moderna. And every time someone mentioned they had their shot, the questions would start: oh, were you Pfizer or Moderna? Did you have any reactions? How was your first shot vs. second? Etc.

And I get why it happened in our internal space; after a year of being run ragged by pandemic, we've got something proactive happening and we want to obsess over it the same way people can't shut up about the options they chose for their new car or whatever. The problem is that a lot of people went on to give the blow by blow to their friends, who didn't have that same context of "We're all imminently getting vaccinated, we're all going to take what we're offered, and this is really just an excuse to talk about vaccines some more". So I'll overhear phone calls of "Oh, all of the *really* bad side effects I've heard about were Pfizer" (and naturally, I've heard the same phone call about Moderna) when it's a Pokemon Red to Pokemon Blue situation and no one here really *cares* in the sense of strongly wishing they'd had the other one.

So yes, agree that choice isn't worth the anxiety here, but I think a lot of people are feeling catharsis talking about what they've received, which is probably contributing to the perception of meaningful difference.

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David Robertson's avatar

I do wish the vaccines were not associated with Brand names. I believe this influences a society already pushed towards a consumer viewpoint ("really, you have to buy this kind of olive oil...") to apply this behavior where it is entirely inappropriate.

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