I got my COVID-19 Shot today 💉🙋🏻‍♂️ 😷

It’s the beginning of the end of the year that was. I didn’t get it the first week it was available but hearing that a lot of my friends and colleagues were getting vaccinated I thought now was the time. I don’t like needles or doctors but truth be told from the people I know who’ve gotten COVID, two shots in the arm didn’t seem that bad. Didn’t hurt one bit. I was in and out in less then 20 minutes, with like only 5 people in the building to 100 government workers and volunteers to direct you were to go. It wouldn’t even had taken 20 minutes, had not I been required to wait for 15 minutes after getting the shot, although the 15 minutes was entirely on the honor system.

It was only a few weeks ago that to get a COVID shot you had to get up early, make an appointment on a website that kept crashing to get the shot, wait weeks and travel hundreds of miles to a distant clinic. I could have literally had an appointment at this point the next day if I was willing to go in on a Saturday evening but I waited until the following Tuesday during my lunch break. With the fact I am a public employee and work with the public I was eligible for 1B, and while I didn’t want to cut in line, I took the advice of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and got the shot soon after I was eligible.

A year ago it was a pretty scary time, something nobody was prepared for as the world radically changed. Remote work was a non obvious challenge to me as I didn’t have internet at home. And nobody really knew how things were going to proceed or how long lockdowns would continue. For a while it was really looked on as people leaving their homes as being evil, spreading the virus around their community. I was never that locked down – I went down to the library and Five Rivers to work from my laptop and wasn’t too worried about it going out to remote country where I knew it unlikely that I’d run into anyone else, or if I did I would be well socially distanced. Fortunately, not many people I knew closely died from COVID, but at one time that was a very reasonable fear to have. I did avoid the stores, preferring a quick shop weekly at Aldi’s to going to any kind of big box.

Now I don’t like the waste of a needle, or all the packaging the COVID-vaccine comes in, but at least they are able to get multiple doses out of each vial. And it prevents waste by avoiding myself getting sick, especially with a need for hospitalization. And is sure is convenient, as I could just catch a bus downtown and it was right on the bus line. I kind of wish I had gotten the single dose vaccine, but this was one that was available for me at time I ordered it up.

Most importantly, now it’s really something I can put behind myself. With my first COVID shot, I now have significant immunity to COVID,  and will have full immunity by the start of May after I get my second shot in three weeks. It’s kind of life affirming to know I won’t have to worry about getting COVID-19, or be spreading it around the community. While it will be a few more weeks or maybe months of mask wearing until herd immunity in community is reached, I don’t have to think about getting COVID-19 myself, especially if I return to working back downtown soon and riding the bus daily.