It’s understandable, but it’s not reasonable. I mean, it’s understandable that people who are afraid of needles might avoid vaccinations, but it’s not reasonable. My friend A is so phobic about needles, he passes out, but he reasoned that getting COVID would be much, much worse, so he arranged to be lying down when he got vaccinated so it wouldn’t hurt when he fainted.
It’s understandable that someone who, like me, felt awful after the two SpikeVax jabs would hesitate to get the booster, and I admit I was nervous. But I reasoned that the booster is a lower dosage and less likely to cause side effects and that a breakthrough case of Delta (as two vaxxed but un-boostered friends of mine have had) would be worse than the side effects, so I got the booster.
I’d suggest not waiting, at least if you got Pfizer. I was going to wait until 7 months, and I didn’t even make it to 6. Getting a breakthrough infection really sucked.
I’m much better. Still have reduced lung capacity, and my sense of smell is still gone, but I think it’s coming back.* And I can only work half days because my sleep is messed up. Can’t get to sleep until late, and can’t get up until mid-morning. I feel pretty exhausted most of the time. But, slowly improving.
The kids are fine. Spouse is also on the slow improvement track. Still checking her pulse-ox twice per day, and it’s still not normal, but it’s getting better. She’s exhausted all the time, too.
I think it’s a long slow road back to normal.
Kitty had a setback, but is improving again. He previously had issues with bladder crystals. He started having symptoms again – trying to pee every couple of minutes but only getting a few drops out. That can mean irritation, or it can mean there’s a dangerous blockage. So, to the urgent care vet he went. Not blocked – yay! But back on antibiotics and some other meds that are very tough to get in him. He’s fighting me on the meds, which must me he’s feeling better, but it makes it really tough. I think he’s going to be OK. The bladder symptoms can be brought on by stress, so not a big surprise, I guess.
*On my sense of smell, for a while, even strong smelling things, like hand sanitizer, I could not tell that they had a smell at all. Just nothing. Now, I can sometimes detect a sensation that tells me there is a smell, but I still can’t smell it. Very strange, but encouraging.
You may have seen the news yesterday that the Ford Motor Company will require vaccination of most of its salaried employees, by December 8. With currently 84% self-reporting being vaccinated.
And the usual ******'s are already out on social media trumpeting how they will NEVER buy another Ford.
Now more companies are falling under Federal mandates. I wonder if these folks will boycott most groceries, utilities…life will get awfully bleak if they do.
Sure sounds like it. This is one of those times when you have to keep telling yourself that it could have been much, much worse. But still… dear God.
Glad the kitty is not blocked. I’ve had cats with crystals and it can be really bad. It’s like you have the canary kitty in the mineshaft indicating the stress level in your family.
Thanks for the update. I’m very interested in y’all’s (yes, that is a real word) progress.
We just had a swing and a miss - my elderly mom (who has had a mini-stroke, heart attack, and stents placed) called me Wednesday sobbing. A gentleman from her church died that morning from COVID. He was last in church 10/24, where they sat in the same pew, shook hands, sang a lot. And, despite the vast majority of parishioners being over 70 with multiple health concerns, no one wears masks. She is vaccinated, no booster.
This woman. When I gave her lists of places to get tested right away, she asked if they were nasal swab testing sites. Yes. She informed me she’d pass, then, as she refused to have anything up her nose. Found a saliva testing site, made an appointment for her, then “accidentally on purpose” forgot to remind her to bring her email address (she can never remember it). That way I knew she’d have to call me, and I would know she actually followed through. She did go, and late last night I received the email that it was negative.
What gets me - she called her “not a boyfriend” this morning who immediately offered to bring her breakfast. She let another parishioner know, who then said she’d see mom in church Sunday. No, mom, I’d suggest not running to the grocery store. Give me your list and I’ll have whatever delivered. Are you all 4 or 84? You were not released from standing in the corner, now to run wild.
But will the vaccine deniers and skeptics willingly accept treatment that clearly comes from gummit-sanctioned Establishment Sources (IOW Deep State)? I’m guessing they’d rather use weirdo treatments they hear about on Facebook from their similarly uninformed friends/family.
I’d have said the bigger concern is that they’ll see it as just another reason to not get vaccinated.
Remember those stories of vaccine skeptics suddenly becoming converts at death’s door, just to be told that the vaccine doesn’t work as a treatment - sorry.
Why get vaccinated? (COVID doesn’t exist anyway but-) If I get sick they can give me the pills, right?
That may be true but short of forcing vaccines into their arms I suspect people in that category were going to be a hard sell anyway.
At least now we can stop them from taking up hospital beds and dying. Even at several hundred dollars a course for dozens of people that is still going to end up cheaper than having to deal with intensive treatment and death for the one person whose hopitalisation it prevents.
Another way of looking at it may also be… a few days of pure misery followed by a steady recovery thanks to a drug that they will take, might prove to be a subtle encouragment. i.e. the same companies and organisations that create and promote safe and effective anitviral “A” can also now be trusted when it comes to vaccine “B”.
Big Bird, who’s been telling kids to get vaccinated since 1972, tweeted that he’d gotten a covid vax and encouraged his fans to do the same. Of course the anti-vaxxers, led by Ted Cruz, squawked:
In the territory of broken irony meters and stopped clocks being right twice a day, we have the rightwinger who tweeted about the Big Bird vaccination “controversy”
Funny, that how I feel after reading about some of these loons and the parade of ignorant stupidity they want to foist on the rest of us.
Who’s heard of Dr. Matthew Memoli of the NIH? I don’t know if he’s a Covidiot or not, but he’s certainly giving the anti-vaxxers some ammo: "He’s a doctor! He works for the NIH, and HE’S not getting vaccinated! From here. Bolding mine.
The vast majority of doctors and the public health community is on board with vaccines. But support is not unanimous. It is not completely settled within the National Institutes of Health, which includes Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to a Sunday report in the Wall Street Journal.
The paper profiles the NIH’s Dr. Matthew Memoli, a senior researcher who disagrees with the country’s current all-in approach on vaccines. He’s applied for a religious exemption for himself and feels the country should be pushing the vaccine to at-risk communities like seniors rather than giving it to as many people as possible.
He’ll take part in a debate streamed to NIH employees, according to the Journal, and he is apparently willing to leave his job rather than get the Covid-19 shot.
I don’t understand why he thinks this way. Did a crackpot get into the NIH?
He’s real. In fact, he works on flu vaccines. His position is a tiny bit more nuanced but he’s going to be the new darling of the right whether he wants it or not.
He states that widespread vaccination will hinder robust, natural immunity. Well, there is one study that supports the notion that natural immunity is better and two that challenge it.
I can’t bear to put this in the Covidiots thread. One of my former students has died of COVID. Like the overwhelming majority in that town, he wasn’t vaccinated and was convinced COVID wasn’t that bad. I remember him as a good kid, genial and hard-working and very much into rodeo. He fought COVID long and hard and died struggling to breathe. He was 34.
I’m very sorry to hear that. I hope there’s silver lining: maybe his story will inspire his friends and family to re-think in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise. But it’s awful that it would come to that. 34 is too young.
This is one of those times when you have to keep telling yourself that it could have been much, much worse. But still… dear God.
Worrisome, for sure.