Well, I have. Or at least I’m contributing. I got my first COVID-19 vaccination this week. I’m aware that not everyone can say this but for me the operation was smooth, the injection painless, and the side-effects non-existent. That actually seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Of the thirty or so people I know personally who have received at least one shot, three had a sore arm for a day and one of those sore arms was accompanied by a night of chills and fever. I’ve heard a higher percentage of these same people complain louder about the morning after effects of encounters with spicy foods or adult beverages.

I have seen some warnings about posting images of this card to social media. I’m sure they are well-intentioned and the warning is, in general, a reasonable one. However, it appears to me that the only personal information on the card is my name and birthdate, and those have been circulating on the World Wide Web for years. Even so, I don’t want to be totally irresponsible and completely ignore the warning so, inspired by Captain Yossarian’s censoring methods, I’ve blacked out the vowels and odd digits.

As you can see, this isn’t the first time I’ve willingly become part of the herd in an effort to avoid a devastating disease. The phrase “social distancing” had not yet been coined in the 1950s but, even without a catchy name, parents really worked hard at keeping their kids away from strangers during the frequent polio outbreaks. I suppose there were exceptions, but it seemed to me that pretty much everyone was ecstatic when vaccines became available, and there is no question that everyone was happy when those outbreaks stopped happening every year or so. It’s certainly unfortunate that not everyone sees the COVID-19 vaccines, or even the disease itself, in the same light that polio and associated vaccines were seen in the last century, but I have hope that we will all at least be happy when the outbreaks stop.

UPDATE 6-Mar-2021:

I got my second Moderna COVID vaccine injection yesterday. The operation was smooth, and the injection itself painless, but things got mildly unpleasant later. I don’t recall ever having any sort of reaction to a vaccination until last year. I received the first of two Shingrix (for shingles) shots in January and decided to get the second one at the proper time in March even though COVID had just hit. Getting that second shot was one of the very few times I was inside a pharmacy during the last year. I had a reaction to that shot that was unnervingly like COVID symptoms. For almost two days I had chills, a fever, a mild headache, and just generally felt like crap.

The cause of the COVID reaction was explained to me as follows and I imagine pretty
much the same thing applies to Shringrix.

Although none of the COVID vaccines being used contains any actual virus, either living or dead, they apparently resemble it quite a bit. Once injected, the first dose of vaccine runs around building defenses. When the second dose comes along, it’s pretty easy to mistake it for an attacking enemy. After all, the lighting isn’t very good in there. The two doses may do battle with each other until all the identities are worked out.

I got my shot a few minutes past 11:00 AM. When I went to bed around 10:00 PM, I noticed that my arm was sore where I got the injection. That in itself was kind of unusual. At almost precisely twelve hours after the shot I was hit with chills and aching joints. That lasted for an hour which I got through by piling on an extra blanket and putting my body in self-cuddling mode. The aching joints continue today along with a slightly elevated temperature (98.8 vs my normal 96.6). There have even been a few flashes of hot and cold but nothing like that first hour. I’m treating it with Girl Scout cookies.