COVID-19

Jab Number Three

Fandango21 Comments

Last night I got my Moderna COVID-19 booster shot. It didn’t hurt at all. Last night.

This morning my left shoulder was a bit sore. But other than that, no adverse effects.

My wife and I went over to my son and daughter-in-law’s place this morning to watch our 18 month old grandson while my son and DIL took their two week old baby girl in for her two week checkup. Everything was cool.

But by around noon, I was starting to feel very tired, and by the time we got home in the early afternoon, I was feeling a bit achy. So I took an Advil and then took a nap.

I’m feeling better now, but I think I’ll just relax for the rest of the evening. I’m sure I’ll be feeling 100% by tomorrow.

And as far as I’m concerned, this feeling a little sore, tired, and achy for a day or two is a small price to pay for knowing that I’m protected from a potentially fatal disease.

And I’m just thankful that my balls didn’t swell up like Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s did, according to a tweet from Miss Minaj.

Mind the Gap

Fandango38 Comments

An article from the New York Times showed up on my newsfeed this morning. The headline of the article was…

Gee, what a shocker. Vaccines to protect people from getting COVID-19 or from getting as severely sick from the disease if they do get it, arrived in early 2020. But with the partisan attitudes toward them so different, a gap in Covid’s death toll quickly emerged. In brief, the gap in Covid’s death toll between red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) states in America has grown faster over the past month than at any previous point.

In October, 25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from Covid, more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties (7.8 per 100,000). October was the fifth consecutive month that the percentage gap between the death rates in Trump counties and Biden counties widened.

Counties where Trump received at least 70 percent of the vote have an even higher average Covid death toll than counties where Trump won at least 60 percent. As a result, Covid deaths have been concentrated in counties outside of major metropolitan areas. Many of these are in red states, while others are in red parts of blue or purple states, like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Virginia, and even California.

The explanation for that growing gap is simple: the vaccines are remarkably effective at preventing severe Covid, and yet almost 40 percent of Republican adults remain unvaccinated, compared with about 10 percent of Democratic adults.

As the Times article points out, irrational fears about vaccine side effects have overwhelmed rational fears about a deadly virus. It stems from disinformation — promoted by right-wing media outlets, like Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, One America News Network, and online sources — that prey on distrust and fear mongering from those on the right, including Republican politicians.

The bottom line is that conservative Americans (Republicans) will probably continue to suffer an outsized amount of unnecessary illness and death.

Shouldn’t Donald Trump be held accountable?

Fandango’s Provocative Question #142

Fandango34 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

I received my first two COVID-19 vaccinations last February and March. They were the Moderna vaccines. Recently, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved COVID-19 booster shots at 6 months or more after their initial series of shot for certain groups, including for those people who are 65 years and older and adults who have underlying medical conditions or live or work in a high risk setting.

I’m over 65 and I’ve scheduled my COVID booster shot for next week. My question to you this week has to do with COVID-19 booster shots.

If you have already received your initial COVID-19 vaccinations, are you intending to get a booster shot when it becomes available to you? Why or why not? If you have yet to be vaccinated for COVID-19, are you intending to ever get vaccinated? Why or why not?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #140

Fandango20 Comments
FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

A lot of people in 2020, due to COVID-19 stay-at-home mandates, lockdowns, and closed restaurants, stores, and workplaces, relied on online shopping and delivery services. People used online services for meal deliveries, grocery deliveries, and for deliveries of everything from sundries to clothing to pet food to electronics, and to almost anything imaginable.

COVID has plagued us — pun intended — for more than a year and a half and in some areas, thanks to vaccines becoming widely available, things have started to open up. Many restaurants have reopened to serve patrons indoors. Many employers are having employees return to their worksites instead of working from home. Children have returned to attending classes at physical facilities rather than via Zoom classes. And many jurisdictions have eased up on mask mandates and social distancing restrictions.

So my question(s) this week have to do with online shopping for home delivery. Are you ready?

During the height of the pandemic, to what extent did you avail yourself of online shopping for meals, groceries, and other goods and services? If you did use online shopping and delivery services, now that things have eased up a bit, has your reliance on or use of such service continued at the same rate, increased, or decreased. To what extent?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

Thursday Inspiration — Live on Stage

Fandango18 Comments

In the Before Days, prior to Covid-19, my wife and I used to go to around a dozen live stage performances a year. There is nothing like seeing a live concert where your favorite classic rock artists, like the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Peter Frampton, the Stones, CSNY, Elton John, Steely Dan, the Moody Blues — all of whom we’ve seen perform live over the years — and a host of other greats, rock the stage with their greatest hits. And yes, we’ve even been to multiple live Yanni concerts over the years!

When we lived in San Francisco, three blocks from Golden Gate Park, we used to go to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Outside Lands music festivals, each of which had multiple stages spread across a large section of the park. And on the East Bay we saw live performances by artists like Jackson Browne (pictured above) and Don Henley at Berkeley’s Greek Theater amphitheater.

And we also subscribed to Broadway SF, where we went to about a half dozen live Broadway stage shows (musical and plays) each season.

But all that ended once the pandemic hit, and, quite honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to see another live-on-stage performance again. At least not until COVID-19 has been fully eradicated. But with all of those assholes who still refuse to get vaccinated or even where face masks, that’s highly unlikely.

Written for Jim Adams’ Thursday Inspiration prompt, where the word is “stage.” Photo credit: Fandango.