Back in January, maybe February, I told my wife that I needed to look into getting onto the waitlist as soon as I could. This really surprised her, as I haven’t had a flu shot in probably 20 years, and she was very much in the hesitancy group. But she has a prior autoimmune disease, and a currently active autoimmune disease, and is on immunosuppressive drugs. So she was very concerned about how her body might respond to the vaccine.
But I pointed out that we had already seen the places I get take out move from curbside, back to more traditional indoor carry out, and that at some point, we were going to see mask fatigue and a general step down of precautions. And that at some point, I will eventually wind up back in the office. And I wanted to do my part in not being the vector that brought COVID home to find out how bad she did with it and her current condition. I pointed out that at the rate they were vaccinating then, we probably had months to consider if we wanted to go forward, and see what data came out on the vaccine for those with autoimmune diseases or immunosuppressive drugs. So she signed us both up on the list to find that by medical conditions, we were both group 1B. And we came to the top of the list faster than I expected. At least I had seen some preliminary data showing no concerns for those in either of those groups, and I convinced her, that while the data was limited (and still lacking long term data obviously) that it really looked like the risks of complications if either of us eventually caught COVID were far worse than the risks of getting the vaccine.
I will say, that first time I picked up take out, after the state mask order was lifted, I was very thankful I already had the first dose, and I was still uncomfortable with the roughly 50% mask wearing I saw that day. Thankfully, for the most part, I have seen far more mask compliance since, but have still been thankful for having both doses for things like flying to Wisconsin for a wedding, a large wedding reception with not a mask to be seen, and amateur radio club meetings, where the last two months, we have met in person, with not a mask to be seen, though we are holding hybrid meetings, with about half the attendance remote via zoom. And I’m finally back at the gym, with only a few masks to be seen.
My point is, that if you have hesitancy about the vaccine, the world outside is going to continue moving forward. These step downs in mask wearing are going to continue. Today, only half the people in the convenience store I stopped at were wearing masks. At some point, hopefully before you get COVID, you may find yourself wishing you already had taken the vaccine. If you are in that hesitancy group, I encourage you to set up a telemedicine appointment with your doctor and talk about what specific concerns you have with your medical history and see what they think, given the current studies.
Are there cases that suggest the vaccine isn’t perfectly safe? Possibly, but the issues are so rare that they are safer than drinking water or eating dinner. And based on the limited data sets for vaccines or COVID, it looks like the vaccine is at least 1,000 times safer than waiting to see if you get COVID, or what complications come up on your spin of the wheel.
And, the news ticker I saw while on the treadmill at the gym today suggests that the variant that has been tearing up India, is now loose in north Texas.
So please, if you are one of the hesitant group, please consider your options carefully.
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