Well, it's been a long couple of weeks since I've been able to post. Work has been eating me alive the entire time, but thankfully it's been leaving my wires alone so I at least have that much on the ball right now.
Anyway.
I finished getting vaccinated a little over a week ago. I got a full run of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and now that I'm (medically) back on my feet I can write a bit about it.
The first jab back in April wasn't too bad. While it took some time to get through the line of cars at the site (nearly an hour) it was remarkably well organized, with the National Guard directing traffic and managing everything. Once I got to the actual site the injection was quite literally wham-bam-thank you ma'am. Total time for the shot was less than a minute, then pull forward and chill for fifteen minutes. Aside from a little soreness near the injection site later that day it wasn't that big a deal. I felt a little tired that night and the next day. No moreso than, say, working late and having to commute home during the Before Times.
The second injection was a bit more involved. Getting through the line took far less time than projected (we'd budgeted an hour to get to the location and make it through the maze of traffic control cones again). As it turned out there were strangely few people there this time (possibly due to folks having to work, possibly due to folks having a later appointment, I don't know), so we were a good hour or so early. Getting the second shot took just as long as the first one (less than 30 seconds, including rolling my sleeve up).
As for the side effects everyone's been talking about... mine were'nt all that bad. About an hour after the jab my arm ached dully below the injection site, kind of like a mild flareup of RSI on a cold day (Pennsylvania or DC cold, not California cold) for the rest of the day and most of the next. I didn't actually feel sick; more wiped out. Think the early stages of a cold or con crud. The thing is, it set in later Thursday evening (around 2000 or 2100 hours UTC-7) and lasted for the next couple of days. I'd planned on a long weekend to begin with because I wasn't the only person who got laid low by the jab; I just didn't expect it to last into the next week. I think a fever set in on Saturday morning; I distinctly remember breaking out in a cold sweat and having to sit down after any reasonable amount of exertion (e.g., taking the garbage cans back in) for a couple of hours. Taking the next Monday off was probably the best thing I could have done because I needed the extra sleep. Which I got a great deal of that weekend. It wasn't until that Tuesday that I could actually think straight for any length of time.
As far as I can tell this is a fairly typical reaction to the second Pfizer jab. It certainly does not reflect any of the more pronounced effects I've heard about (such as feeling like one has the flu, not covid-19) nor have I had any of the nastier side effects a very small number of people have reported. If times were different I'd probably joke about my 5G reception suddenly getting much better and dropping some cash on Windows 10, but these are times where such statements (made in jest or otherwise) are used to get people to do very unwise, very unhealthy, downright stupid things.
No, I'm not going to post a picture of my vaxcard because folks are making and selling forged ones. They can find someone else's to use as a template.
Incidentally, I discovered yesterday that Office Depot is laminating copies of completed legit vaccination cards for $2.50us a pop. While they only make copies of the card to laminate, they look pretty sturdy. Shame they don't actually fit in any wallets, so I don't know if it's actually worth doing or not.
Unsurprisingly, mutant variants of covid-19 have been in the wild for months, and now there is concern that the existing vaccines won't be proof against it. This is entirely unsurprising. Flu viruses do this; it's called antigenic drift. If you get a flu shot every autumn this is why. SARS-CoV-2, like other flu viruses is no different in this regard.
So, please get vaccinated. Wash your hands. And wear a friggin' mask (if only to confound facial recognition - let's normalize that).