I’m Getting Vaccinated Sunday. In Five Weeks, COVID is Over for Me.
“Thanks,” to a terrible congenital heart condition, I was moved to “Phase 1a,” of NJ’s vaccine plan. That means that this coming Sunday, after 11 months and 12 days of at times state mandated, at times self imposed isolation, I will be venturing out, interacting with actual humans that I don’t live with, and getting my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
There’s been a lot of vaccine misinformation out there, with a lot of it, sadly coming form the highest ranks of our government COVID response, including Saint Fauci himself.
Naturally, people who are vaccinated want to know, “what can I do now?” Sadly, and very unscientifically, Fauci’s response has been that essentially nothing changes. You still can’t travel, see extended family, gather with friends, you know, all those things that make life worth living. Maybe next Christmas you’ll be able to, but like Rick Harrison offering to buy a priceless heirloom, that’s the best he can do. It’s really hard to overstate how devastating Fauci’s “never normal,” campaign is. The common response I see, understandably, online is, “well, then why get the vaccine?” If you were trying to actively discourage people from taking the vaccine as soon as they can, I struggle to see how your approach would look any different from Dr. Fauci’s.
We’ve put up with a lot over the past year or so, and people need an end game. It’s not a option. You have to let people know that there is true light at the end of this tunnel. At a certain point last summer, we were dreaming of 60% efficacy. We have about 95%. We have 99.9% when discussing prevention of hospitalizations, and 100% when discussing prevention of death. For all the people who say the vaccines aren’t a silver bullet, they pretty much are.
Yes, the data isn’t 100% complete but it’s still pretty overwhelming. The vaccine will almost certainly prevent you from contracting SARS-COV-2. It will almost certainly prevent you from transmitting SARS-COV-2, it will almost certainly prevent you from becoming very ill with COVID-19 and it will certainly prevent you from dying of COVID-19. Almost certainly has to be good enough, because this is the real world, not a medical journal.
Five weeks from this coming Sunday, after I’ve had both my doses plus the two weeks post-second dose for the effects to fully kick in, I will know, confidently, that I am safe from this disease. For a while, until everyone has been offered the vaccine, I will wear a mask in public out of sheer good manners. I’m not going to wear a sign that says I’ve been vaccinated, and I don’t want to make others uncomfortable. But I plan to have my mother and sister down to see their grandchild/nephew for the first time in a year, my mother has had it and my sister, a health care worker, was one of the first vaccinated. We won’t be wearing masks or physically distancing when together. We know that they are immune, as am I. I plan to return to shopping for myself, rather than paying extra delivery fees, and if we need something from the store quickly a night, I’ll know I can once again just pop out for a few things.
This summer, once everyone over 16 has been offered the vaccine and that’s been the case for a few months, I’ll throw my mask away. I’ll know it’s over. This is not a forever pandemic, and we will never reach COVID-0. But we are beating this pandemic. We are in the home stretch, no matter what the media, or overly-cautious doctors tell you. For every doctor loudly preaching a forever pandemic, there are 5 quietly saying, “no, once you’ve had the vaccine, you’re safe.”
This is winding down, we’re winning. Hang in there a little longer.
