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Sunday Morning (14)
Nothing says Sunday morning better than a good coffee and some fresh baked croissants. And a covid shot.
Well, today that is. Debbie got her first just an hour ago, and I got mine earlier this week. We both got Moderna by chance (it was either this or Pfizer, depending on the order in the line-up). We were happy to wear one of our good facemasks, we have still some left of the supply we bought in December 2019 when we saw the pandemic rising in China. Only last week in the Netherlands the lockdown was enlightened further, but still you can only have 4 visitors a day in your home. How strange to compare this to the situation in which we got our vaccination. In a comparably small hall at least 50 people crowded together in line to get identified, issued a number, guided to one of the even smaller six rooms where the vaccine was administered, then again pushed further to another relatively small, poorly ventilated room were they were supposed to sit down and wait for another 15 minutes to be sure that they did not react adversely to the shot.
Although all of the candidates were wearing masks, we were the only ones with a proper one. It is hard to understand why, 18 months into the pandemic, proper (N95) masks are not widely distributed by governments. Not even the nurse who administered the shot had a good mask. They all wore a simple surgical mask, the blue-green thingy that doesn’t fit the face very well and leaves much to be desired, protection-wise. And in the recovery room (the 15 minutes-hall), all participants were advised to even take off their mask (!), in order for the nurse to watch their bodily reactions more easily.
Needless to say that neither of us took down the mask, nor did we wait for 15 minutes in the recovery room. I talked this over earlier with our personal physician, who assured us that on average, covid shots did not cause more anaphylactic reactions than the seasonal flu shot, so this waiting period afterwards was not necessary at all. Neither of us ever reacted badly to a vaccination in the past, so we thought the risk of getting infected in the waiting room was probably higher than the benefit of the whole recovery-circus. Even for Debbie, who had an anaphylactic reaction once in her life to some specific food. We waited outside and in the car for a little while, than drove home. One shot down, one left. Are we better off now? We have no clue.
The Netherlands are doing averagely when it comes to vaccination, compared to the rest of the European union. At the moment, 10 million shots have been administered on a population of 17 million. Last week, 165.000 shots were given every day. 67% of those older than 18 have had at least one vaccination. Still, this means that most are snot very well protected at all. The decision to open restaurants, concert halls, cinemas, schools etc. as of this week feels more like a political/social move than a wise one. We will not be joining the crowds yet. And we don’t mind. We do our part not getting infected and not infecting others. Taking the shots is (possibly) a small contribution to that.
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2 Replies
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Paul, welcome to the Moderna club! I’m happy to hear that you and Debbie received your first dose, and I hope you both tolerated it well. I had very mild symptoms following the first dose, but that second dose was a doozy for me (as we know, that isn’t the case for everyone). I’ll be hoping for minimal side effects and maximum immunity for you both moving forward.
The situation you describe with lack of proper masking and cramming dozens of people into a small area is so similar to situations I’ve witnessed as well. There is no consistency and it seem like common sense really isn’t all that common. *sigh*
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There is a Club? Wow, it keeps getting better 🙂
We are happy to report that both of us tolerated the first vaccine very well. Other than a little stiffness in the arm that was gone after a day, we had no side-effects. We hope the second one will be as easy on our body.
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