V: Virus, Variants, Vaccine, Virtual, Voting

 

Virus, Variants, Vaccine, Virtual, Voting

One of the scariest words heard this past year was "virus," one that had to do with people. I began to panic even before the pandemic was declared. Just coughing was enough to confuse me, and sometimes after I'd gone out in public, I'd take my temperature. Just my anxiety setting in. Never once had a fever. And then came the variants of the coronavirus. I panicked once the variant was discovered in parts of California.

I chose to include this video as the first song parody is on the variants. And another is on allergies, which I seemed to have a lot of once Covid hit. I was coughing a lot in early spring, when things were starting to bloom. As I said, if I got too anxious, I'd take my temperature. This season, however, I seemed not to be coughing as much.

 

Yeah, I could not wait to be able to get the vaccine.

 

Once the vaccines were developed, I was eager to get one. But at first it was only 65 and older, and essential workers of any age. My cousins, who work at a restaurant (though one is an accountant) were able to get theirs in March, and my mom got hers then as well. Each had their second shots this month, and all had the Pfizer, which I had wanted to get, though I would take what I could get.  As I said in this post, I kept looking for appointments  in my town once the vaccine eligibility age was changed to 50 and older. It was days before I found an appointment. On the first Monday of the month, I got one for the following afternoon. I did not see until I had signed up that they were giving the J&J one, but was glad I was going to be "one and done." My cousin had wanted to get the J&J, but had been unable to. Of course this was before  what happened to some of the people who'd gotten that vaccine. I did start to panic and was tense all over with anxiety. But it has been over two weeks, almost three now, since I got the vaccine.

The vaccination site was at one of our town's two middle schools, which I once attended. It was the only one at the time, and did not have a gym then, but it does now (though only a small one), and that was where the vaccines were administered. The line was already long when I arrived before my appointment time. About a hundred people seemed to have shown up that day. Several vaccination stations were set up, so several people had appointments at nearly the same time. After getting the shot, which I barely felt, patients were instructed to give their names to a worker at another station, and then sit down for 15 minutes. The worker then let us known when we could leave.  There must have been nearly a hundred people that day. The line began to stretch into the school parking lot and beyond, to a nearby building structure.

As for side effects, the most I felt was soreness in my arm where the shot had been injected, which was to be expected. And I did feel a bit tired the next day or two, but that seems to happen a lot, especially under the current circumstances.

Among the things that went virtual last year, one was my writer's lab. I downloaded Zoom and logged into about two meetings before I decided it just wasn't for me. Again, I don't know how I could have handled virtual learning, since most of it was over Zoom. More on Zoom when we hit Z.

Our county fair was part-virtual, part in person, with carnival rides eliminated. Like many county fairs across the county, it was nearly cancelled completely, for the first time since World War II. (I have not been to the fair for years now). Plenty of other things went virtual, too many to name. The high school did not want a virtual graduation, though, so a social-distanced one was held. I don't know all the details, but it was done over several days to avoid large crowds.

Some events just couldn't be done virtually, so they had to be canceled completely. I'm still wondering when they will be back, if they ever will be.

I'm already used to voting by mail, since I am an absentee voter. Many who do not vote by absentee ballots were worried about having to vote by mail. And because the pandemic slowed down the vote counts, the election was a week long. I had received my ballots on the second Thursday in October, then mailed them the following week in one of the ballot boxes in my town. I'm always glad to get it over with quickly as a result of absentee ballots.

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Ending for today. Four days to go!