I’m fully vaccinated.
That’s a phrase I never would have anticipated using a year ago. As I think about it, I’ve never used it.
Well, I probably would have uttered it as a little kid if I had been able to pronounce “vaccinated.” I stumbled over the word back then. I still remember having to get all of my shots before I was allowed to start public school in suburban Detroit. But we’ll get to those shots in a minute…
For now, let’s focus on this COVID-19 thing. A year ago, before a single vaccine was available — let alone three of them — none of us would have thought that after a year of mask wearing, social distancing, and not hugging our loved ones, we’d be able to get fully vaccinated this spring. With the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson shots (per the CDC’s new guidelines) we can largely ditch the masks and begin a measured march to normal.
The whole “vaccinated” concept is new for me, as I’m not a “shot” person. I’ve never had a flu shot, and haven’t had a cold or a case of the seasonal flu in 20 years, now. It’s no a needle thing; I just no longer participate in what most of the world calls “flu season.”
We have four seasons in this hemisphere, and “flu” is not one of them.
That said, my decision to get the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine wasn’t an easy one. For me and many other African Americans, the word “Tuskegee” elicits both a sense of pride and a justified concern about medical procedures. It’s that latter association that, in part, fuels vaccine hesitancy among many black folks.
And then, there’s the speed with which the current COVID-19 vaccines were developed and green lit. I’ve not known our federal government to move quickly on much, but in a year’s time, we’ve come from wiping down groceries for fear of bringing the virus into our homes on a box of Cheerios to vaccines with 95% efficacy rates.
So I had to do my research, and this time around, I also listened to my children. (Parents know what I’m talking about. We’re used to…calling the shots.) My kids were worried about their hypertensive dad, and with our family having weathered two COVID scares over the last six months, I got my second of two shots 14 days ago this morning.
I “enjoyed” no side effects at all from either of them (the shots, not the kids). I’d been warned of mild to serious side effects, but as I routinely do with colds and the seasonal flu, I decided not to participate in those, either. I don’t believe for one minute that a shot that’s supposed to help me stay healthy is going to make me ill, if just for a brief time. Call it faith, or mind over matter, or insanity. It has worked for me for two decades, and I’m rolling with it!
For all of the weeks between my first shot and this morning, I pictured my pandemic-repressed, extroverted self dashing out of the house full-tilt and hugging the first person I saw with a big, unobscured toothy grin on my face. The mailman, neighbors…everyone was fair game in those pre-vaccine dreams of mine.
Now that the day’s here, and I’m fully vaccinated, I’m smiling…but I’m not hugging. And a part of that has to do with the half-assed way the Centers for Disease Control rolled out their new mask guidelines.
Vaccine or not, I’ve spent the last 15 months or so going out of my way to avoid the virus, so you’ve got a tough sell to get me to rush out and hug someone that, if history holds true, is probably lying to me about their own vaccination status.
In a nutshell, our friends at the CDC insist that the whole vaccine roll out relies on the American public practicing the honor system with regard to whether they’ve been vaccinated.
I don’t know where the folks at the CDC have been, but the good ol’ US of A that I know wasn’t exactly founded on the honor system. Just ask the Native Americans about treaties that were signed but not kept…if you can find one of them to ask. Our indigenous brothers were all but eradicated by I’m-sure-very-well-meaning colonizers who looked out decidedly for themselves.
Or ask my African American people. Forty acres and a mule? To this day, just the mention of reparations may elicit an eye roll, but not a single dime in black pockets.
And more recently, the honor system didn’t really take off with regard to mask wearing during the last year, did it? Everyone from spring break revelers to MAGA cap-wearing morons went about their business during most of 2020, between COVID-19 outbreaks, refusing to do what was best for our collective good.
We all, slowly, watched over half a million people die in this country alone, as we hoarded toilet paper and Lysol, and baked banana bread. More recently, we’ve taken to hoarding gasoline in plastic bags.
In short, we collectively ain’t too bright. And we continue to show a propensity for doing what we want to do instead of what we should do.
So no, I don’t see the honor system working this time around, either. Even being fully vaccinated, I’ll keep a mask in my pocket at all times, and will be whipping it on this spring and summer at a moment’s notice when I walk up on a crowd, inside or out.
And I would support the much reviled “vaccine passport.”
Yes, I’d be more comfortable if businesses, public accommodations and the like demanded proof of vaccination before allowing entry. With a system like that, I wouldn’t have to tell the dude at the deli counter in Raley’s that his mask would work better if he actually pulled it up over his nose and mouth.
Oh, yes I did. And I felt pretty darned good about it, as I ordered a modest portion of turkey pastrami. Gotta watch that blood pressure!
If you want to go to a concert or a ball game, you should have to show proof of vaccination. End of discussion.
Vaccine passports are the way to go — just like back in the day, when my mom had to produce one before I could register for public school in Detroit. I still remember some pain with the administration of those early life shots. Thinking about one of those shots in particular still makes my left ass cheek quiver.
But the momentary discomfort I felt that day was a small price to pay for the subsequent satisfaction of knowing that I wasn’t going to contract a potentially lethal virus in the crowded halls of my public kindergarten.
Other countries are managing vaccine passports — and the pandemic — very well. Why not us? For those of us who went to public school, at least, providing proof of vaccination isn’t new at all.
Michael's Mind's Eye 