Seeing those anti-vax posts is making me re-think again my thoughts on the COVID-19 vaccine 💉
The latest one making the rounds suggests that there is something unsafe about the vaccine because it was developed so quickly when the war on cancer, AIDS and the flu has been going along for decades without effective vaccines – ignoring the fact that most cancer isn’t a virus except for HPV which has an effective vaccine.
The technology powering the mRNA Coronavirus vaccine is pretty remarkable – it took only two days to develop the vaccine after they had the sequence of the virus. Covid-19 really pushed the technology into practical use for the first time. Expect more mRNA vaccines in the near future. mRNA vaccines may soon have answers to cancers, flu and severe colds – thanks to power gene sequencing and splicing technology.
The science is really neat – see the articles I shared yesterday. Are there unknowns and dangers out there? Yes, but Coronavirus is a clear and present threat now and the scientific evidence suggests the vaccines are safe and very effective. There is enough people and governments looking at the research to know you are getting a quality product. And with the news media and the anti-vaxers looking down the throats of the vaccine program, you know any minor glitch or problem with the vaccine will be widely reported and splashed all over social media. Chances are pretty good that taking the vaccine won’t kill you or make even very sick but the virus may very well do those things to you.
Now I don’t like the glitzy media roll out, the banner ads and signs on the buses that are certain to come to promote the vaccine in the coming weeks. I won’t be joining any long line in the dead of winter, stepping over snow banks and freezing my ass off to get vaccinated. I won’t be on social media bragging about how I was the first person on my block to get the shot, or how I’m out there supporting Joe Biden’s administration as a patriotic American getting vaccinated. But once it’s convenient and I’m fully educated on the initial vaccine roll out, good and bad, I’ll swing by the pharmacy and get jabbed.
I’d much prefer a single shot, painless vaccine quickly jabbed over the counter like my flu shot this year. But I guess two easy to get shots beats ending up in the hospital. Not because of some cheesy advertising campaign with singing cheer leaders on the color television or to support the Biden administration but because it’s a low cost (in time and money spent) way to prevent getting sick. I really don’t want to get COVID-19, it’s really bad news.
A major cost of living in New York State is taxes. We have very high property taxes, but then again does much of New England. The median property tax bill in Albany County, NY is $4,200, while the median property tax bill in the mountain country of Webster County, WV is $268. In much of the south, especially away from the oceans and metropolitan areas, property taxes are much lower then in our area. You can understand why many people, especially seniors to choose to move to lower tax states.
I used to build all my finalized projects with old fashioned perf board, solder and jumper wires. But solder is kind of a pain - it's much too easy to accidentally bridge the pins and sometimes it grows whiskers - and when you add components or sensors or make wiring mistakes - you end up doing a lot of soldering and desoldering. Bad solder joints can lead to endless frustration when you have noise in the signals.
Breadboard like this is inexpensive when buy direct from China, plus is so much more flexible and actually is pretty reliable and long lasting once the wires are seated. Changes are super easy - just unplug the wires, no desoldering required.
And it seems like with the latest in low cost microcontrollers (costing less than $5) - fewer external sensors are needed as more things are on board. For many projects I a just a handful of sensors and things like power transistors or relays and power supply is all that has to be done off board.
