I scheduled and got my first COVID-19 vaccine shot after weeks of checking the appointment scheduling site at least twice a day. I'm a Moderna kid, with my second shot scheduled for about three weeks away.
I'm very happy to get this done, and very thankful to the many, many people involved in putting a controlled amount of very special fluid into my arm.
Years of IT infrastructure monitoring give me a deep appreciation for technical things working as well as they do, and for paying attention to pieces of a whole process that many would just take for granted.
With regard to this vaccination effort, there's the administrative directives moving money and redirecting effort at government and bio R&D facilities, the amazing research itself, the transportation industry getting the vaccines delivered, the scheduling software and database infrastructure tracking appointments, the pharmacy accepting responsibility for vaccinations, their people handling the record-keeping and actual injections, and the various infrastructures supporting all of that.
It's a huge, humbling thanks for making my arm hurt a ton for about a day and a half. Today the arm's feeling much better. But I also feel a little overall better, too. I don't mean just the inner "Whew! Finally got this going!", but there's an improved feeling of wellness throughout my body. Maybe I'm turning into a superhero. Probably it's psychosomatic. Whatever it is, I like it, temporary as it might be.
It'd be great if this feeling of improvement was what other people got from the vaccination. Better still if this meant that I and the rest of the vaccinated were totally immune from the disease. But I don't think everyone feels better after getting vaccinated, and the vaccination doesn't give immunity. We are never going back to pre-pandemic normality.
Being vaccinated against this virus doesn't mean you can't get it. It means that when you do, your body's much less likely to have serious effects from it. It's not like being vaccinated causes every COVID-19 coronavirus coming close to your body to be magically zapped and destroyed. The vaccinated can still catch COVID-19, and can still spread it.
So SARS-CoV-2 isn't going away. Mask mandates shouldn't be going away for a long while. Once a large majority of the population is vaccinated, the difficult decisions regarding whether or not to lighten up on masks and distancing will still have to be navigated. People will still be infected by and die from the disease.
Many businesses and governments expecting to completely return to 2019's normality have to adapt to this new normal. There's no business or government vaccination for COVID-19. Without some serious thought and change, business and government leadership that just hopes for everything to return to pre-pandemic "normal" are setting up for unexpected disruption and failure. People depending on these organizations will be impacted.
We're still just starting to see the societal changes from the pandemic. Working part or full time from home's one change that the ever-nimble information technology sector has helped facilitate. Factory work has had to change to accommodate distancing, as another example. Food prices have shot up as transport and other costs have increased. Work has to compensate better so we can get back to a single income being enough for a household.
I get it, humans like the familiar. "Normal" shifts with the times. But handling this virus has upended just about everything, forcing rapid adaptations and changes that our society's not prepared for. We can't get back. The societal current that the virus has put us in is too strong. Much of our leadership is trying to steer our metaphorical boats back to our old screwed up society instead of steering toward a new, sustainable, stronger, and more flexible normal.
I miss the old normal, too. But it's not coming back. We have a new "normal" for now.
Best wishes to you all in these chaotic times.
I'm very happy to get this done, and very thankful to the many, many people involved in putting a controlled amount of very special fluid into my arm.
Years of IT infrastructure monitoring give me a deep appreciation for technical things working as well as they do, and for paying attention to pieces of a whole process that many would just take for granted.
With regard to this vaccination effort, there's the administrative directives moving money and redirecting effort at government and bio R&D facilities, the amazing research itself, the transportation industry getting the vaccines delivered, the scheduling software and database infrastructure tracking appointments, the pharmacy accepting responsibility for vaccinations, their people handling the record-keeping and actual injections, and the various infrastructures supporting all of that.
It's a huge, humbling thanks for making my arm hurt a ton for about a day and a half. Today the arm's feeling much better. But I also feel a little overall better, too. I don't mean just the inner "Whew! Finally got this going!", but there's an improved feeling of wellness throughout my body. Maybe I'm turning into a superhero. Probably it's psychosomatic. Whatever it is, I like it, temporary as it might be.
It'd be great if this feeling of improvement was what other people got from the vaccination. Better still if this meant that I and the rest of the vaccinated were totally immune from the disease. But I don't think everyone feels better after getting vaccinated, and the vaccination doesn't give immunity. We are never going back to pre-pandemic normality.
Being vaccinated against this virus doesn't mean you can't get it. It means that when you do, your body's much less likely to have serious effects from it. It's not like being vaccinated causes every COVID-19 coronavirus coming close to your body to be magically zapped and destroyed. The vaccinated can still catch COVID-19, and can still spread it.
So SARS-CoV-2 isn't going away. Mask mandates shouldn't be going away for a long while. Once a large majority of the population is vaccinated, the difficult decisions regarding whether or not to lighten up on masks and distancing will still have to be navigated. People will still be infected by and die from the disease.
Many businesses and governments expecting to completely return to 2019's normality have to adapt to this new normal. There's no business or government vaccination for COVID-19. Without some serious thought and change, business and government leadership that just hopes for everything to return to pre-pandemic "normal" are setting up for unexpected disruption and failure. People depending on these organizations will be impacted.
We're still just starting to see the societal changes from the pandemic. Working part or full time from home's one change that the ever-nimble information technology sector has helped facilitate. Factory work has had to change to accommodate distancing, as another example. Food prices have shot up as transport and other costs have increased. Work has to compensate better so we can get back to a single income being enough for a household.
I get it, humans like the familiar. "Normal" shifts with the times. But handling this virus has upended just about everything, forcing rapid adaptations and changes that our society's not prepared for. We can't get back. The societal current that the virus has put us in is too strong. Much of our leadership is trying to steer our metaphorical boats back to our old screwed up society instead of steering toward a new, sustainable, stronger, and more flexible normal.
I miss the old normal, too. But it's not coming back. We have a new "normal" for now.
Best wishes to you all in these chaotic times.