Covid Vaccine

[Mel]

I've had both Pfizer Covid shots, as has Terry. His wife and daughter had the first one. None of us had a reaction to them. Yay!

[CRAMBAM]

That's great. I get my second Pfizer on Saturday. The first one was only a sore arm that went away in a day. I'm hoping for a similar result.

[Mel]

The four of us have had both Pfizer shots now, and none of us had any reactions. Yay!

Here's to getting to herd immunity!

[CRAMBAM]

It wasn't bad. I was a little off the next day, maybe a SLIGHT fever, but nothing too bad. That was it.

[TrekBeatTK]

I got the Johnson & Johnson this week. Just a sore arm for the day; no other side effects.

Now can we all be free of these blasted masks already??

Who's taking bets on how far out Biden moves the goalposts again once we reach July 4?

[Mel]

I have a few friends my age. We lived though the 1950's polio outbreak. We knew people who contracted polio. In school, we were given polio sugar cubes which immunized us against polio. As kids, we went house to house collecting for The March of Dimes, an organization created to raise funds to combat polio.

Some polio victims died; some lost the use of limbs; some were in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. Some had paralyzed chest muscles and were confined to iron lungs. Back then, there were entire hospital wards (ward after ward) of people in iron lungs. Our church visited some regularly. What I saw terrified me. Adults in iron lungs were often there for life. Children were luckier; their lungs tended to heal.

More than 3,100 people died; a drop in the bucket compared to Covid. Within a few years of the polio outbreak, most of the US population was immunized against it.

Despite this shared history, and with over half a million dead in a year, I have friends who are against the Covid vaccine. People too young to experience the polio outbreak, I can rationalize that they don't understand the dangers. But those who know what it was like and don't want the vaccine? I don't get that.

Yes, I blame a lot of the reluctance to get the vaccine on Trump (he got his vaccine in January before he left office). Those friends of mine who don't want the vaccine are Trumpers. As you know, Trump supported (natural) herd immunity. We'll never get there unless many more are vaccinated.

Below is a hospital ward filled with children in iron lungs. As a kid, with my SF bent, the machines looked like aliens who had captured children and were torturing them.

[TrekBeatTK]

I don’t know that Trump has much to do with it. Trump was pro-vaccine and his administration got it out to us (for Biden to claim any credit is absurd). While there are some reluctant to take it just because they worry it was rushed out, I think most these days fall into the camps of “I’m in no rush, let those at risk get it” or “what’s the point if I don’t get to go back to normal?”

The fact that governments continue to insist on broad mandatory masking even after full vaccination in frankly absurd. Many compliant folks who love liberty at this point aren’t given an incentive to do so if nothing changes for them. If masks are so crucial and save lives, and more necessary even after vaccination, then the message sent is that masks are more effective than vaccines so why should they bother getting it? Biden has a messaging problem. But it’s really all about control anyway.

And of course you have those who won’t take it because it came from Trump. Remember our Vice President saying so repeatedly? And then in the push to racialize America, we get fearmongering about Tuskeegee. And then there are the fringes who think it’s the mark of the Beast. But that’s not most.

I too know a guy post-polio who can’t walk well. But interesting side effect of the polio epidemic is in third world countries where they give overdoses of vaccine and have actually caused polio in some populations. Stuff like that can also make people reticent about vaccination.

[Mel]

Trump's Operation Warp Drive was effective. But it went hand-in-hand with Trump continually doubting that Corona was real and deadly, combined with repeatedly saying it was dying down. He also praised his testing efforts, despite the fact that most people couldn't get tested. In September, he said that Corona wasn't as bad as others thought it was, and that it was going away, without a vaccine. In October, he said the same thing. In November, he said a vaccine was coming, but that the pandemic was dying without it. After Trump got Corona, he announced that he wouldn't get the vaccine. When he did get the vaccine, he didn't announce it. This year, he hasn't promoted getting the vaccine, except for for a statement to Fox News. Trump said people should get the vaccine *if* they want it. In my opinion, Trump has much to do with the reluctance to get the shot.

[StarFuryG7]

May 9, 2021 7:31:20 GMT -5 TrekBeatTK said:

I too know a guy post-polio who can’t walk well. But interesting side effect of the polio epidemic is in third world countries where they give overdoses of vaccine and have actually caused polio in some populations. Stuff like that can also make people reticent about vaccination.

I haven't been vaccinated yet. Initially I decided to just wait until it was more readily available, which was projected to be in April or May, and having had the virus last year just a week after the shutdown began (and I was likely positive for the virus the week after the shutdown started despite having not known it at the time), I was content to wait until getting the shot(s) would be easier. Now, however, some information has dripped out there here and there about the vaccines, which are stilled deemed 'experimental,' and I don't like some of what I heard. So I'm taking my time assessing the situation before getting the shots.

And hell, we're almost in June at this point, when the virus isn't likely to spread anyway, so I figure I can wait at this point.