Wednesday 7th July – that’s a little under three weeks from now – is when we are booked in for our second dose. Meaning in approximately 5 weeks we’ll be fully vaccinated. It cannot come soon enough.
We’ve opted to go for an mRNA vaccine; we don’t know which but it will be either Pfizer or Moderna. My reason for choosing the second dose to be of a different type to my first was because we got offered the chance to be part of a large study. The study tracks immune responses and side effects from those folks who have a viral vector vaccine for one dose, and an mRNA vaccine for the other. I’ve felt particularly useless for the past 16 months, so to be given the opportunity to contribute to the science in a tiny way was an easy and instant yes from me.
As a consequence of having a date for my second shot, I now have a date for when I will allow myself to go to the pub. We’ll first have a date night at a restaurant (which we have booked!), but after that – probably allowing myself a week or two to digest the experience and work out how I felt about it – I’ll go to my local, plop myself at the bar, and drink it all in. Pun intended.
March 7th 2020 was the last time I went to a bar. It was immediately after the first day of the Rugby 7s here in Vancouver. So by the time I next go to a bar it will have been nearly 17 months. I never really understood the “It’s been x loooong months” saying before. I thought I did. But I was wrong. I do now. It truly has been 17 long months.
My local friends shouldn’t be too far behind me in getting their second shots. I can’t wait to sit in a bar with them again.
Vaccine passports are starting to rear their ugly head. Punishing people for
a) not having access to a vaccine,
b) not being eligible for a vaccine, or
c) actually getting fully vaccinated but with a vaccine that you don’t recognize even though it’s proven to be more efficacious than one you do recognize
is absurd. And dangerous. It gives those vaccine hesitant folks even more fuel for their decision to not get vaccinated.
Sure, I have skin in this game; I received a first dose of AZ in April. So am I a little biased here? Of course. Would I make the same decision in April to get a shot of AZ knowing what I know now? Abso-fucking-lutely I would. We don’t get vaccinated for ourselves. We get vaccinated for each other.
The inevitable slow down in first dose pickup has happened here in BC, but I’m delighted to see that we’re slowly ticking towards 80%. I think it’ll be a slog, but I think we’ll get there. As vaccine hesitant folks realize that their friends and family have been vaccinated, or their workplaces start to less-than-subtly heavily recommend vaccination, or when they first start to travel and need to quarantine upon arrival or return, I suspect those folks will “bite the bullet” and get it done.
I am delighted to see that second dose uptake has really began strong. I can’t find it now, but I saw a large-ish questionnaire which suggested 99% of people who got their first dose here would get their second. Other places in the world such as the UK, Israel, and parts of the US, suggest that might be a little optimistic, but it’s a good bar to aim at.
I’ve been completely undated with requests for updates as to what we have decided to call our Air Conditioner. After letting him settle in for a while, getting to know him, and learn his somewhat industrial aesthetic, we have dubbed him Frank. I told you our naming scheme didn’t always make sense to outsiders. (I’m not sure it makes sense to me, tbqh)
Undated has to be the opposite of inundated, right?
Uninundated?
English is a stupid language.
Last week I posted some photos of what our apartment might look like with an office space. I realize that some folks may have absolutely no idea what my place looks like right now, and I thought it would be good to have a reference for whenever we do decide to make any changes. So here’s our place, in 3D renders, as it sits right now.
I’ve preached this for quite some time at UBC, and I’m proud that I have prevented many carousels from being vomited onto dozens of websites.
BC COVID-19 Vaccine Count: 81.8% (+6.2%) and 83.0% (+5.4%) Canada-wide. I’m probably going to need to start finding 1st dose vs 2nd dose numbers for BC and Canada to make it make sense from now on. 👩🏼⚕️
