The teen has been boosterized! Yippee!
Friends in other parts of the country talk about how difficult it is to get a covid-19 vaccination. Not here. Last month I received a text from the state health department, saying I could get my Pfizer booster, with a link to options for signing up. I made an appointment at one of the city-run vaccination events. A few days later, I was in and out in 25 minutes — and that included the 15 minutes I had to wait afterward to make sure I didn’t have a reaction.
And my husband was able to sign up for a vaccine clinic at work recently, as soon as the Moderna booster was approved. So he’s been boosterized, too.
A couple weeks ago, our 19-year-old son passed the six-month mark from the date of his second Pfizer shot. He came home from college Saturday night. On Sunday, I visited our city’s vaccine website, decided that the Safeway pharmacy was the best option this time, and made him an appointment for today, Tuesday. I enticed him with promises not only of immunity, but also of pizza afterward. Again, the process was quick and easy. At the store, he showed his student I.D. and a screen shot of his vaccine card. After a ten-minute wait, the pharmacist gave him his shot. Once it has time to take hold (two weeks for the full effect), his immunity will be officially boosted.
But at least my whole household is boosterized. Also magnetized and microchipped, if you believe the right-wing conspiracy theorists. Personally, I haven’t developed any superpowers yet (except a sudden ability to write fiction again, after months of writer’s block on my novel). But maybe now, we can amuse ourselves by sticking spoons to our foreheads. (Yes, I know that your average stainless steel flatware is not attracted by magnets, but the right-wing vaccine memes and bogus videos apparently do not.)
A friend posted online this week that eight months since her second shot, her doctor tested her and said she had no immunity left — it had dwindled to nothing over those eight months. She got the booster right away. Clearly, the covid-19 vaccine will need to be repeated over and over again. I hope scientists can fine-tune it so that we need another one only once a year, as with the flu shot. But if twice a year is what it takes, then I’ll get it twice a year. Magnetization notwithstanding.
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