Vaccinations

 

It is time to schedule your vaccinations if you have not already done it. We scheduled our flu shot for the end of September. Today, we had our second shingles vaccination (it takes two.) Hopefully, we will be able to get a Covid-19 vaccination before the end of the year. I keep hearing that many people are going to wait for the Covid-19 vaccination until there is more data available. The only way more data is going to be known is if people get vaccinated. Sounds like a Catch 22 situation. Right now there are at least three competing vaccines in third stage testing. Personally, I will get the first available one, and then the second available one, and also the third one that is available. If each one is less than 100% effective, I intend to be protected, especially when 25% of the US population says they will not be vaccinated. If that sector does not help protect me, I will defend myself. And this is from someone who absolutely hates getting shots and hates going to see a doctor.

Risk and Trust in the Pandemic

 We have been socializing with another couple every week. All of us have been self-quarantined, so little to no risk. The other couple attended a family function this past weekend with their two children, their spouses, and three grandchildren. We will not be socializing with the couple for a couple of weeks to minimize our risk of exposure to Covid-19. We were ok with the risk of exposure before—two people who were seeing two people who were all social distancing and self-quarantined. The socialization risk factor has increased by several hundred percent. If we were to socialize, we would be extending our trust to four additional adults and three children.

We have no idea how many people those seven have been exposed to. If it is only 2 people each, potentially, we risk exposure to a minimum of 21 additional people. In a state where the infection rate is 10% or more, two of the 21 people probably have the virus. Since my wife and I are in a high-risk group, this is more risk than I am willing to take. If each of the seven additional people has been exposed to 4 other people, we would be extending trust to 35 people. There are likely at least 3 infected people in the group. When people meet in groups, without social distancing, they are significantly increasing their risk of infection. Yet, we continue to see people that refuse to wear a mask and ignore social distancing rules. I don’t think we will stop the pandemic until we have a vaccine that works, and enough people have received the vaccine. With 25% of the population saying that they will not get vaccinated, we may never end the pandemic.