Vaccine musings

I continue to be impressed with the performance of the new Minnesota vaccine waitlist system. Not only did the website perform nearly perfectly on Tuesday, they have continued to follow up with clear and timely communications via text and email. I was pleasantly surprised to get a clear message letting us know that we weren't winners this week rather than just left to wonder if we just missed the call. Heck, it's been years since you could even expect to get a polite rejection from a failed job interview. Classy touch, Vaccine Waitlist Managers.

Although it seems like the vaccination train has barely left the station, the number of people who have had at least one shot has now caught up with the total number of confirmed infections in the US in the entire past year (about 25 million). 

So you might expect that the number of people I know who have tested positive for the virus would be comparable to the number that have had a dose of vaccine. But no. I know WAY more who have been vaccinated. (By "know" I mean pretty much that I am within 2 hops of having met them. So that includes the woman I talked to at the Harriet Drumming party AND both her parents, Amber's friend who works in a hospital,  Dreamwidth friends and any of their contacts, etc). It's encouraging to keep hearing actual reports of vaccinations happening.

I have absolutely zero patience with people who are consumed with resentment because somebody else "less deserving" has been vaccinated before them. Grow up, people. The important thing is not who "deserves" it more, but that the vaccine get distributed efficiently and no doses wasted. With every vaccination given, the population moves closer to herd immunity and all of us should celebrate.  

 
One of the things I am not getting into a lather about is worrying about people refusing the vaccine. The harder it is to get, the more people want it. We are already seeing increasing reports of mean-spirited attempts to cut into line, along with the afore-mentioned grousing. Since demand will outstrip supply for many more months, vaccine hesitancy isn't going to be a problem any time soon (if ever). 

 

Hey, what happened to flu season?  The made up problem of Double Pandemic was another supposed catastrophe that I refused to worry about when it hit the media engines in early fall, apparently correctly. Pick your Panic Mode, I say. 

 

Really? Biden wants to pre-order all the vaccine we will need for the rest of the year right now, from Moderna and Pfizer? That locks us in to just two manufacturers, even though additional vaccines will be on the market in the next few months. Have we just dropped the idea of using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (which will be announcing results of Phase 3 trials in the next 2 or 3 weeks!)  Does that seem like a bad idea to anybody else?