Rick's b.log - entry 2021/12/18

Advent 2021 days 17 and 18

Vaccination top-up

The first shot of Moderna gave me pins and needles for a while, but it wasn't a big deal, just kind of weird.
The second Moderna had... very little effect to be honest. The famous Moderna Arm (red, sore, swollen) that faded after a few days.

But since Moderna can cause your heart to blow up, there's less Moderna and people are being told to get Pfizer (Comirnaty) top-ups. Which is amusing as the EMA's documentation says that myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation of the heart / surrounding membrane) is a possibility. Maybe less so than with Moderna's "Spikevax" (what a dumb name), but still...

With me? It was like one day of flu. Zero concentration. Everything ached. Crashing headache. Hot, cold, hot, cold. No appetite nor strength. And for a lot of the morning after, it was as if I was following myself just slightly delayed behind real time.
I must have looked pretty bad, as one of the stock girls was like "you really need to sit down, I'll go get a chair".
But my attitude to being ill is: no fainting, no unexpected blood loss, no pieces falling off...I'm good to go. So I kept on going.

I started to feel a little better after a thermos of tea at break time.

After work, a quick whip around the shop as I didn't have food (I'd planned to go shopping on Friday), and then home.
I made a quick video and uploaded it, to explain why no advent calendar stuff.

By about quarter eight I was in bed. I woke at about one, watched the new episode of The Expanse, then fell asleep again, and slept until half eight. So, yeah, I feel better now.

My arm is a little sore, obviously, and I still feel tired so I won't do much this weekend, but the main pain is my right armpit. The lymph nodes. Which is, again, to be expected as the immune system does its thing.

Like I said to people, this will pass. Come Monday, I ought to be fine. Well, not fine but about as good as I get in the middle of sodding winter. The hit that I got from the vaccine really only took me out for a day.
That's far preferable to catching Covid. Which, of course, may still happen. Vaccines don't guarantee immunity, and the latest mutation is sufficiently different that the current vaccines are rather less effective.
But, on the other hand, the latest mutation is sufficiently similar that the current vaccines may reduce an infection to something akin to flu, rather than "in hospital on a ventilator". Especially as this wave is rapidly reducing hospital beds, ventilator availability, and staff levels. Kind of a perfect storm for when not to get ill.

I don't regret getting my third dose.

What the hell?

If so, can I suggest that we try locking down the refuseniks who don't want to be vaccinated? We know, already, that they are the ones that are the great majority of hospitalisations. And with no immunity, they can help the spread of the virus. It is, after all, the entire purpose and point of a virus, hence the phrase "going viral" when stuff on social media blows up and ends up everywhere. The virus is simply getting better at doing what it is supposed to do.

We, the hosts, need to get better at doing what we are supposed to be doing. Taking the vaccinations, wearing a bloody face mask, keeping apart from each other (easy for us introverts ☺), not grouping in stuffy rooms, and certainly not mixing in large gatherings in close proximity.

It took my breath away to hear some so-called representative of the hospitality sector bleating on the radio news about how hard things are, and how restricting people's abilities to go to nightclubs and the like will hit an already badly hit sector.
It's never good to hear about people potentially losing their jobs, but, you know, the problem here isn't the possibility of restrictions. The problem is there's a goddamn pandemic happening which means, no, things are not "back to normal", and it may be quite a long time before anything gets back to normal. If, indeed, it ever does. Already plenty of people who get paid to stare at their computer screens are questioning the point of even going into the office when they could just as easily do that from home. To imagine that everything can just carry on as it has is foolish.
But it gets worse, because if you look at what the guy is saying from the other side, he's basically saying that he wants his salary and he doesn't care if people die.

Westminster has failed you. Johnson's government is a populist government. The country as a whole has some real issue with ID cards, so no vaccine passports. People don't like to wear face masks, so no more masks. It's utterly stupid and the massive spike in infections is what happens when a clueless puppet with no grasp of anything remotely medical does what the people want rather than what the people need.

What the people need is to understand that this is bad. That it requires a group effort from everybody, to help to keep the infection numbers down. Otherwise, it's just going to be a merry-go-round for who knows how long. Certainly the forseeable future. Covid has already proven that it isn't going to fizzle out or go away.

Here in France, a vaccine pass is required for going to expositions (like when I went to Nantes, it was scanned half a dozen times), as well as for restaurants (except takeaway service). The rules are really quite clear. You can be up to date with your vaccines, or you miss out. There is nothing unusual here, it is already obligatory for various different groups (especially children) to have a range of common vaccinations (Google "vaccinations obligatoires en France" for details); however at this time it is only obligatory to be fully vaccinated against Covid for those who work with fragile or immunocompromised people - care homes, home helpers, nurses, doctors, firemen, medical students, etc etc.

Aww, the boss cares

The gift?

Twenty five new bog brushes . . . awesome! 🤣

 

 

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PENIS EXPERT, 18th December 2021, 18:16

Glad you got your third shot too Rick. I just got mine a couple days ago. Bit of a light fever but some paracetamol chased that away pretty quickly.   Hope you're keeping well and doing alright.

VinceH, 19th December 2021, 02:34

I booked my booster as soon as I became eligible to do so on 30th November. The booking is for 7th January. It's since been opened up, so I could get it sooner, but given that I only have to go out a few times between now and then for shopping, (and once to meet my parents' new dog) and it's easy enough to take precautions, I may as well stick to that date.

Rick, 19th December 2021, 10:24

Yeah... Didn't entirely go down well with some at work.  "What do you mean you just turned up without an appointment? You b***ard! I've been calling everywhere for weeks!"    Turns out, though, that I'm not the only person that tried turning up for the Vaccibus and got lucky with an empty slot. ;)

Rick, 28th December 2021, 21:00

129,000 new cases a day in the UK, something closer to 178,000 here... I think it's safe to say Omicron has arrived and Omicron will hurt.

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