Rant #2,634: A Shot In the Dark

Well, yesterday’s Rant, as I predicted, was so thorny that while I know that many people saw it and read it, I didn’t get a single “like” on Facebook for what I wrote about the latest supposed “racial” incident in Minnesota.

Nor did I get a single comment right here at the Blog, which is not that unusual, but I do see that this particular post received more reads than any that I have put up lately.
 
I kind of knew it was just simply a too controversial subject and stance to take, but I do feel that I put into words what a lot of people are thinking.
 
And if that isn’t so, then I simply put into words what I was thinking, and I have the right to do that.
 
Otherwise, everything is copacetic with me, and I am so glad that I received the Pfizer vaccine to fight the pandemic rather than the two other vaccines out there, the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, although the next current uproar I am going to talk about is nothing but a really bad speed bump as far as I am concerned, but it shouldn't derail the entire program.

 
Yesterday, all doses that were supposed to be given of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were pulled, pending further investigation into a few reports of blood clotting and other after effects that have been reported.
 
With millions of shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine already given, the reports of blood clotting are less than 1 percent, but of course, that is 1 percent too many.
 
Although I am not a doctor, let me explain some things to you that you might not know, or maybe you do, but once again, the media refuses to talk about.
 
Getting any inoculation is a crap shoot, there is some peril involved, and any shot can give you bad side effects.
 
I have been getting allergy shots for roughly 48 years going on 49 years, monthly, since the 1970s.
 
When I started getting these shots to combat my really bad allergies, there was a risk involved, as there is a risk involved for any shot you get from your doctor, whether it be an allergy shot, a flu shot, etc.
 
When I first got the shots, I was told that afterward, I would have to sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes so that they could check for swelling at the entry point in my arm or for any other bad effects.
 
I did this for the first few years of getting the shot, but since I never showed any negative symptoms or swelling, I don’t have to do this anymore and frankly, I haven’t had to do it--save one instance--for more than 40 years.
 
Sound familiar?
 
Yes, when you get your coronavirus vaccine, and no matter which one, you have to sit and wait and see for the same 15 minutes that I had to sit and wait and see with my allergy shot.
 
Whether allergy shot or coronavirus shot, there is a risk involved when you get inoculated, and yes, some people don’t do too well when they get their shots.
 
I remember probably about 30 years ago, a doctor in a neighboring community to mine gave a patient an allergy shot, and the patient went into cardiac arrest a few minutes afterward and died.
 
So for about two or three months, I had to once again sit for 15 minutes and wait and see if I had any bad after effects, but after that time, I never had to wait again.
 
These things happen, and even if it happens to one person, it is one person too much.
 
The latest problems with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have only affected a handful of people, all women of child-bearing age, and doctors are looking into all possible reasons why these discrepancies happened to these particular women, one of them becoming hospitalized and another dying.
 
One possibility is that the vaccine mixed with the chemicals in their bodies from their birth control pills, and the interaction might have led them to becoming really sick or in the case of the one lady, it was fatal.
 
There evidently might be a link between blood clotting, the vaccine and the birth control medicine that they are using, and that is one possibility that doctors are looking into for why these women--all young, healthy women--became so sick.
 
But another possibility has to be that these women simply became sick because they were inoculated, and their bodies, for whatever reason, could not handle it.
 
It happens, as I mentioned earlier, and science still does not know why some people can handle inoculations without any problems while other people can’t.
 
I mean, my 90-year-old mother had mild symptoms form her two vaccine shots the day after she got them—tiredness and lack of appetite—but once the next day concluded, she was fit as a fiddle, and has had no further after effects.
 
These women were of child-bearing age and couldn’t handle it.
 
Go figure.
 
Me, this 63 year old, took his two shots and had absolutely, positively, no negative symptoms at all. I am happy to say that I really didn’t miss a beat.
 
But that is me.
 
This latest Johnson & Johnson problem casts another pall on the entire coronavirus vaccination program, putting another blemish on what should be a maximum rollout and a maximum acceptance of the shots by the majority of the U.S. population.
 
But even one report of problems casts a pall on the entire program, and so many people simply won’t take the vaccine that this latest blemish must affect people who are sitting on the fence about it.
 
Should I take it or should I not?
 
The latest problems with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are sure to push people to the latter decision, and that is not good.
 
I am relatively happy that my mother and I took the Pfizer vaccine—I have yet to hear any major problems with this vaccine—but you have to wonder whether we will ever reach herd immunity—the 75 percent or more level that doctors say we must reach to obliterate this scourge—with these blips in the program.
 
I just don’t know, and I don’t think that anybody really knows …
 
And that is the problem.