“At the height of the pandemic, more people under 30 were living with their parents than were living on their own. Pew found that 52 percent of young adults ages 18 to 29 were living in their parents’ homes last summer, up from 46 percent at the start of the year. The percentage of young people who returned home was even higher than in 1940, when, at the end of the Great Depression, 48 percent of young adults lived with their parents.”
New York Times
For the last year Barb and her sister Jan were diligent in keeping themselves and those around them safe. They were hunkered down. Now that they and their close family have been vaccinated, a few of them are spending a week at Barb’s place in Destin, FL. Well deserved. No indoor dining but lots of beach time.
It’s been two weeks since I received my second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Time enough for my immune system to generate antibodies to the virus which means exposure to the virus probably won’t put me in the hospital or kill me.
A year ago I was still having lunch with friends in restaurants. And wiping down table tops with antiseptic wipes. (We hadn’t figured out the virus was air-borne.) Soon after Barb and I went into lockdown. We quarantined more diligently than anyone I know and maintained that diligence for a year. When Barb visited her sister they wore masks and did their brief chats outside, twenty feet apart. No birthdays, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas. Serious isolation. You know the drill.
Now that we’ve both been vaccinated, we’re venturing out. Barb going for walks with (vaccinated) friends; sitting in her sister’s (vaccinated) kitchen; going inside the supermarket instead of curbside pickup. We’re still masking in public and will do so until the scientists tell us it’s safe to stop.
Barb and her sister will spend a week at our place in Destin this spring. Just the two of them. They have a lot of catching up to do.
In recent weeks I’ve realized how much the year of near-isolation has affected me. The stress has started to show and I’m eager to get out of the house and be with some friends. “Have you been vaccinated yet?” has become a common refrain. I feel like I’m in a zombie movie. I don’t see any but I know they’re out there. But it’s time to rejoin the living. Wish us luck.
“The arrival of The Shot has transformed the grim pop-up clinics of the pandemic into gratitude factories — reassembly lines where Americans could begin to put back together their busted psyches.”
The joy of vax: The people giving the shots are seeing hope, and it’s contagious (Washington Post)
While my vaccination story has been surprisingly smooth, not so for most folks. Part of an IM exchange with a friend in Massachusetts:
The state has just opened up vaccinations to those 65+ and he’s been trying to get his father an appointment. In the photo below he has 24 browsers open on four computers (and an iPad).
Received second dose of vaccine (Pfizer) this morning so I guess I’m as vaccinated as I can be for now. Vaccinated. The word has taken on something of a magical quality (in my head). In a few weeks my immune system will have created enough antibodies (another word with big mojo) to keep me from getting sick or dead from the virus.
I feel like the kid who has been given a super power but can’t think of anything to do with it. “Go inside a grocery store” doesn’t seem very ambitious but I’m looking forward to it. And sitting in the same room with a (vaccinated) friend.
The Big Payoff will come from Barb spending time with friends (most of whom have been vaccinated) without worrying about infecting me with the plague.
I’m aware posts like this are a bit like “Here’s a photo of me with my new Lamborghini,” but perhaps it will encourage someone to get vaccinated that was reluctant to do so.
“Israel’s largest healthcare provider on Sunday reported a 94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of the Pfizer’s vaccine in the country’s biggest study to date.
Health maintenance organization (HMO) Clalit, which covers more than half of all Israelis, said the same group was also 92% less likely to develop severe illness from the virus.
The comparison was against a group of the same size, with matching medical histories, who had not received the vaccine.
“It shows unequivocally that Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is extremely effective in the real world a week after the second dose, just as it was found to be in the clinical study,” said Ran Balicer, Clalit’s chief innovation officer.
He added that the data indicates the Pfizer vaccine, which was developed in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech, is even more effective two weeks or more after the second shot.”
Inside the Trump White House After His COVID-19 Diagnosis. Olivia Nuzzi article in New York Magazine. For those of us wondering what sort of drugs Trump might have been on following his brief stay at Walter Reed…
“He’s on the sort of drugs you’d see with a Tour de France rider in the mid-’90s!” Another way to say this, the former White House official said, was that the president is “hopped up on more drugs than a Belgian racing pigeon.”
But the money quote that will stick with me is from Trump’s niece, Mary Trump:
“The president is best understood as a self-unaware Tin Man, abandoned as a small child by his sick mother and rejected by his sociopath father until he became useful to him, whose endless search for love and approval plays out as mental warfare on the Free World he improbably represents. “In order to deal with the terror and the loneliness he experienced, he developed these defense mechanisms that essentially made him unlovable,” Mary said. “Over time, they hardened into character traits that my grandfather came to value. When you’re somebody who craves love but doesn’t understand what it means — he just knows he misses it and needs it, but he’ll never have it because he’s somebody nobody loves — that’s fucking tragic.“
Barb got her second COVID vaccination (Pfizer) this afternoon. I’ve been trying to think of a more anticipated event in the 40+ years we’ve been together. Our wedding was a big deal but I think we were both more excited about the after-party. But that wasn’t a life-or-death moment. Given our age and other factors, getting COVID could put us in the hospital and/or kill us. So we hunkered down. Way down. Rarely indoors away from home. Always wearing masks. Avoiding friends and family.
That last part has been really hard on Barb. She never complained but it was really hard on her not to spend time with her sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, and all the “littles.” And her countless friends. But she did it. She did it for the people she loves and cares about and she did it because she loves life and wants hers back without the fear of a deadly virus putting her on a ventilator and maybe leaving her crippled for life.
For a long time the idea of an effective vaccine was just a tiny speck of light at the end of an endless, very dark tunnel. But the scientists came through and gave us a couple (so far) of vaccines. And good ones, that will keep us from getting really sick and winding up in the hospital. And the wait began.
As a former nurse, Barb appreciated the need for health care workers to get vaccinated first. And people in nursing homes. You know the story. Next in line were people over the age of 65 and those with health conditions that put them at higher risk from the virus. Hey, that’s us! So we put our names on the lists and waited for the call and checked our email.
Most of Barb’s friends have been vaccinated and some of her family. And in a week or so, this second shot will do its thing with/to her immune system and she can slowly and carefully take her life back. It’ll still be masks and social distancing (god, how I hate that term). She’ll be able sit indoors with her (vaccinated) sister and talk and plan their trips to Florida. She can hang out with her pals (the vaccinated ones) in the garden club. She can be with people besides me (and our two dogs). Truly, I can’t imagine what this has been like for her.
The vaccine has taken on an almost magical aura. A few drops of a colorless liquid from a tiny vial that changes… everything. Sure, there will be “variants” and “mutations” and the guys in lab will have to find ways to tweak the vaccines. And they will. But today… today Barb has as much protection as modern medicine can provide. And I have never been more grateful.