Vaccinated and Proud

Friday, I was vaccinated with the second dose of the COVID vaccine. So thrilled that it was time. I did have some side effects and it laid me into bed for about 12 hours. Not so bad as the symptoms of the flu, but enough that I was happy that I did not have to work yesterday. Those symptoms, however mean that my immune system is working. It means that I now have a 95% chance of not contracting COVID.

What did not happen, I did not grow a tail, nor turn into a crocodile. I am a bit disappointed about that, but it did not happen. I also did not get 5G signal in my arm. There is now tracking signal being released. The needle is not big enough for a tracking chip. Not even the size that you chip your dog with. And those chips, no one can track your movements. And seriously, I am certain Bill Gates would be completely bored should he decide that he did want to track me, I am certain he would stop within 24 hours. My life is simply not that interesting. And I would bet the same for about 99% of you out there. Additionally, if they did want to track you, why would they go to the trouble of microchipping you? Most of us carry around our own GPS tracker devices that we happily pay for. The majority of the US market being manufactured under the names of Samsung or Apple.

Now concerns about the vaccine, itself. The majority of the development occurred after the SARS threat. They didn’t throw away that data, and so the ability to make the vaccine was there. Testing took less time than normal due to the high prevalence of the virus in the community. The rest of the vaccines were developed on viruses with a much lower prevalence in the community, which is why they took years. The prevalence in the community meant they could gather data at a much quicker rate.

As for it altering the DNA. Not possible. mRNA does not do that. Simple genetics. It doesn’t do anything but trigger a warning to mount an immune response. We have to use something that will allow for the virus mutations not to make the vaccine moot. If we used the old technology one mutation and the new vaccine would be worthless. This is why we don’t have a vaccine for the common cold. Coronaviruses frequently mutate, something we have known for years.

And so if we will vaccinate, we will be able to start to resume somewhat normal life again. It won’t be back to before, but maybe that is ok. But I want to be able to travel again. I want to not need to volunteer for shifts on the weekend to give bamivalamib. I want to not have to see patients suffer any longer. I want to not live in a state where the rate of infection is 1 per 1,000 people. Even though the state has a mortality rate of 1.1%, that is still allowing for 10 of those people to die. Not sure why Americans seem to be ok with that, maybe they are just bad at math. Maybe they just lack compassion, but I cannot watch this continue. My colleagues and I are tired of watching people die. Watch people suffer. Explain why they are not admitted to the hospital when previous years with the same symptoms would have guaranteed admission. And then, for those who do survive what to tell them about their long term effects. Their long term heart and lung damage. Because sometimes merely surviving the disease is not as easy as one things. And so I am vaccinated, and hopefully soon the rest of the population will be able to get vaccinated.