“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.
Children of QAnon believers are desperately trying to deradicalize their parents. Here’s what it’s like to lose the person who raised you to a far-right cult.
“Though she didn’t used to be very political, she now fears the president is a pedophile who stole the election. She’s scared of radiation from the 5G towers in her neighborhood and, as a white woman, she told her son, she’s afraid of being harmed by Black Lives Matter protesters — a movement she once supported. She worries that Sam’s brother and sister are being “indoctrinated” at their public high school and wants to move them to a Catholic one. She’s also refusing to get them immunized against COVID-19 as false rumors swirl that the vaccine contains a secret location-tracking microchip. (She was initially terrified of the virus but now considers the lockdowns an affront to her freedoms.)”
I think this would be worse than losing a parent to a fatal illness.
“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.”