Yesterday I got my first dose of the (Pfizer) vaccine and so far I haven't grown a tail or felt too bad. My arm is still a bit sore, other than that I had a few hours of achiness and mild fever which were gone when I woke up this afternoon.
I've been trying to avoid thinking about what I might do once covid-19 was less of a consideration, in part because on some level I don't expect things to get better anytime soon. While I have my doubts that vaccination is the end of covid, especially if things keep going the way they appear to be, it does grant a bit of freedom and leeway that have been lacking for a year.
As I was sipping the day's first cup of coffee in the shower (is there a better place for plotting and planning than in the shower?) it occurred to me that in the relatively near future I might be able to do some of the things that have been on indefinite hold since the 'rona reared its ugly head. There's so much that has been in a holding pattern for the last year that deciding what to do and in what order is quite a task.
So what do you plan to do once you don't have to worry about covid as much? I know travel is at the top of my list, I've barely been out of Louisville since March of last year and I'm ready to lay eyes on new places and new faces. Beyond that, there's so much to choose from that I'm having trouble deciding, so drop me a comment with your ideas, I'm hoping to steal some good ideas 😎
I was reading the other day that in polls something on the order of 25% of Americans are planning on not wearing a mask once they're vaccinated, what about you? While I won't shed a tear to hang up my N95s for the last time, I've come to enjoy some aspects of mask wearing and intend to continue with it. I don't know about y'all but there's something about wandering around looking like I'm about to rob a bank that appeals to me. . .
So who is not going to get the vaccine? I'm sure there's some skeptics out there but that is a can of worms I'd rather not open currently. All I'm going to say on the topic is that when this hillbilly was little I got to spend a few weeks in the hospital with meningitis acquired from a vaccine and I still got the damn thing.
I read the other day that by the end of April every adult American who wants one will be able to get the vaccine. I also read that unless things change drastically, by the end of this year only 10% of the developing world will have been vaccinated. I knew those numbers would be bad but until I saw that I didn't realize quite how lucky I was. What's the situation where you are?
With such a disparity in numbers, I suspect that vaccination is more of a reprieve from rather than the end of covid. With only 4% of the world's population here (and I'm skeptical we'll ever all be fully vaccinated) that leaves a lot of opportunity for the virus to mutate and find a way to keep infecting people. I'm not going to be getting my hopes up too much yet but I intend to take full advantage of the time (at least 6 months as of the most recent data I've seen) that the vaccine gives me.
What's you gonna do?
(Photos from a recent stroll around Lake Reba in Richmond, Kentucky. For 