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So.
We are about to finally get a covid vaccine! Yeah, I know: 2 doses, 4 weeks between doses, obviously, boring people like us who can stay home all the time are automatically NOT first in line, or second or third or whatever and THAT IS FINE!
Throughout the year, there have been polls trying to determine whether people could be convinced to get this vaccine. There were hand-wringing comparisons with the flu vaccine, which has famously low uptake annually (yeah, I know — once you have had it about 5 times, the dropoff in any additional efficacy is pretty astonishing. Yeah, I know, it is not that effective in people who arguably need it the most, etc. Yeah, I KNOW! It often is a very poor match to the flu that is actually circulating. Etc.). MY ENTIRE IMMEDIATE FAMILY HAS ALREADY GOTTEN THIS YEAR’S FLU VACCINE. So we are clear and all.
The number of people involved in the testing on these vaccines (the two RNA vaccines and the chimp adenovirus one) has been _huge_. The safety is _amazing_. The efficacy is _unbelievably awesome_.
It’s okay to sit around and talk about how there have been some real problematic vaccines in the past (there was a bad batch of polio, one of those rotavirus vaccines was a real problem and I believe we continue to wait for an effective RSV vaccine). It is fine to note that for whatever reason, someone cannot safely get a or maybe even any vaccine. It is fine to argue about the details of the schedule, and whether shots should be combined and what kind of preservative should or should not be used in vaccines.
But here and now, it is definitely not okay to be opposed to a coronavirus vaccine. Seriously. Don’t be doing that.
Altho if you do, fine, we’ll just get ours before you get yours and that is also okay. Just keep your issues to yourself and try not to delay our collective attainment of herd immunity.
In actual in person conversations, I am summarizing this as, “It’s great to ask questions, but you should definitely listen to the answers and there were tens of thousands of people involved in these trials and no safety issues and huge efficacy and they are giving it to doctors and nurses first and I am pretty sure that if there is a problem with these vaccines we are going to hear about it.”
On some level, it is pretty entertaining to think about what a person who was worried about later effects of a vaccine might do in response to that fear. Like, if you think the effects are going to only show up in the next generation ... how is there going to be a next generation if we do not get a vaccine? Also, seriously, HOW BAD would the negative effects of the vaccine have to be to be worse than getting covid?
I got almost all the holiday cards ready to go. I did a mom’s zoom (see above) (but it was pretty fun, actually, and I think everyone is coming along well and I think in general, everyone’s trepidation about the vaccine is going to cave in the face of what is about to hit us in the next few weeks). The sitter apparently gave T. some kind of lecture about isolating himself too much so he decided that he wanted to do puzzles and play games and so forth, so that messed up my efforts to adhere to a plan with my walking partner.
But in the event, I did walk with M. I did the long walk by myself.
My dad called. He also called my younger sister. That was weird, but he is apparently pioneering, and I _think_ that he has decided that calling me and my sister qualifies as witnessing. We (sis and I — not my dad) discussed this, and concluded that if we are basically going to be RVs (return visits) in his book, we are basically fine with that, and that would probably be a better relationship with him than we have ever had prior to this. Which, wow, you know, says everything you could possibly say about the nature of cults. If Great Uncle Sjoerd could use Watchtower literature to learn to read English (just _imagine_ looking up all that theocratic jargon in a Nederlands-Engels woordenboek in 195x! Just try to make sense of references to a Theocratic Ministry meeting when you have never attended one!), well, sister and I can use this framework to have some phone convos with an otherwise estranged relation.
A lot of other random stuff happened — phone call with the liaison down in Florida, a bunch of holiday gift giving related communication (“What Do Your Kids Want”, basically), robo call from MA DPH saying wear a mask, stay home, wash your hands and avoid large groups — yeah, definitely new ideas here!
I cooked bacon.
We are about to finally get a covid vaccine! Yeah, I know: 2 doses, 4 weeks between doses, obviously, boring people like us who can stay home all the time are automatically NOT first in line, or second or third or whatever and THAT IS FINE!
Throughout the year, there have been polls trying to determine whether people could be convinced to get this vaccine. There were hand-wringing comparisons with the flu vaccine, which has famously low uptake annually (yeah, I know — once you have had it about 5 times, the dropoff in any additional efficacy is pretty astonishing. Yeah, I know, it is not that effective in people who arguably need it the most, etc. Yeah, I KNOW! It often is a very poor match to the flu that is actually circulating. Etc.). MY ENTIRE IMMEDIATE FAMILY HAS ALREADY GOTTEN THIS YEAR’S FLU VACCINE. So we are clear and all.
The number of people involved in the testing on these vaccines (the two RNA vaccines and the chimp adenovirus one) has been _huge_. The safety is _amazing_. The efficacy is _unbelievably awesome_.
It’s okay to sit around and talk about how there have been some real problematic vaccines in the past (there was a bad batch of polio, one of those rotavirus vaccines was a real problem and I believe we continue to wait for an effective RSV vaccine). It is fine to note that for whatever reason, someone cannot safely get a or maybe even any vaccine. It is fine to argue about the details of the schedule, and whether shots should be combined and what kind of preservative should or should not be used in vaccines.
But here and now, it is definitely not okay to be opposed to a coronavirus vaccine. Seriously. Don’t be doing that.
Altho if you do, fine, we’ll just get ours before you get yours and that is also okay. Just keep your issues to yourself and try not to delay our collective attainment of herd immunity.
In actual in person conversations, I am summarizing this as, “It’s great to ask questions, but you should definitely listen to the answers and there were tens of thousands of people involved in these trials and no safety issues and huge efficacy and they are giving it to doctors and nurses first and I am pretty sure that if there is a problem with these vaccines we are going to hear about it.”
On some level, it is pretty entertaining to think about what a person who was worried about later effects of a vaccine might do in response to that fear. Like, if you think the effects are going to only show up in the next generation ... how is there going to be a next generation if we do not get a vaccine? Also, seriously, HOW BAD would the negative effects of the vaccine have to be to be worse than getting covid?
I got almost all the holiday cards ready to go. I did a mom’s zoom (see above) (but it was pretty fun, actually, and I think everyone is coming along well and I think in general, everyone’s trepidation about the vaccine is going to cave in the face of what is about to hit us in the next few weeks). The sitter apparently gave T. some kind of lecture about isolating himself too much so he decided that he wanted to do puzzles and play games and so forth, so that messed up my efforts to adhere to a plan with my walking partner.
But in the event, I did walk with M. I did the long walk by myself.
My dad called. He also called my younger sister. That was weird, but he is apparently pioneering, and I _think_ that he has decided that calling me and my sister qualifies as witnessing. We (sis and I — not my dad) discussed this, and concluded that if we are basically going to be RVs (return visits) in his book, we are basically fine with that, and that would probably be a better relationship with him than we have ever had prior to this. Which, wow, you know, says everything you could possibly say about the nature of cults. If Great Uncle Sjoerd could use Watchtower literature to learn to read English (just _imagine_ looking up all that theocratic jargon in a Nederlands-Engels woordenboek in 195x! Just try to make sense of references to a Theocratic Ministry meeting when you have never attended one!), well, sister and I can use this framework to have some phone convos with an otherwise estranged relation.
A lot of other random stuff happened — phone call with the liaison down in Florida, a bunch of holiday gift giving related communication (“What Do Your Kids Want”, basically), robo call from MA DPH saying wear a mask, stay home, wash your hands and avoid large groups — yeah, definitely new ideas here!
I cooked bacon.