Rant #2,818: Shot in the Dark

Yes, I overslept again.
 
I think that this can be directly related to my wife, who as you know, has also entered the wonderful world of retirement.
 
Since she doesn’t get up at 5 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. anymore, I continue to feel her presence in the bed at 6 a.m. and later, so my sleep pattern isn’t broken, and I stay in the bed sound asleep.
 
During the past two years since I lost my job, I guess that I used my wife as something of an alarm clock, and when I didn’t feel that she was next to me, it was time to get up.
 
Now that she is next to me longer, I simply don’t get up—but I continue to get up when she does, so if she awakens at 6:30 a.m., well, then, that is when I get up.
 
Funny how things are when you have been married nearly 29 years.
 
And now onto the coronavirus … I mean, is there anything else to talk about?
 
I see a story that Israeli researchers are not only talking about a fourth shot, but they have data and research on it out and it is ready to be digested by the eager public.
 
Before I get into that, Israel has been used as the model for the rest of the world related to the shots, simply because although they are a small country, almost everyone in the country—even the ultra-Orthodox—have been inoculated, and a lot of the valid research has come from there all through the pandemic.
 
So although many countries and people snub their noses at Israel for many of its policies—and let’s be honest about it, because of strident anti-Semitism—those same countries and people look at Israel as the model of consistency during the pandemic,
 
Go figure.
 
Anyway, they have come to the conclusion that a fourth shot—at least of the Pfizer shots, which are the ones given over there—raises resistance by s substantial percentage for those over 60 years of age.
 
This is sort of a “Duh!” conclusion, don’t you think, because again, two has to be better than one, three has to be better than two, four has to be better than three … simply because you are getting more of a dosage.
 
I get three allergy shots every month, so I would expect that three is better than two, and two is better than one …
 
I mean, we can exponentially go through this again and again, with 15 shots being better than 14 … 25 shots being better than 24 … how about 50 being better than 49?
 
The thing that has to worry you about this is that we have not yet decided how much is enough, and also, what exactly will be determined as “fully vaccinated” in the longer term?
 
Right now, “full vaccination” is thought to be the two shots, even with the so-called booster—once again with the Pfizer shot, it is not a booster, but a full third shot—being available.
 
Will our leaders decided that a third shot added to the two shots is “fully vaccinated,” and place restrictions on those only having the first two shots?
 
And yes, in the future, will a fourth, fifth, sixth and 77th shot constitute “fully vaccinated,” with those without those shots restricted in what they can do?
 
This IS the worry that I have, and quite frankly, I do believe it is a valid worry, in particular when millions of Americans haven’t even received their FIRST shot yet.
 
Personally, my wife and son and my nearly 91-year old mother have all gotten our shots.
 
My mother got her third Pfizer shot months ago, so in the current climate, she puts a smile on the face of our elected legislators and other so-called experts who say she has done “the right thing,” and what they want all of us to do.
 
I have not gotten the booster yet, although I will most probably get it at the end of February or at the beginning of March, because that is when my son will be eligible to get the third shot, so we will get it together, in a coronavirus family moment.
 
Kumbaya.
 
My wife cannot get a third dose until the summer, so she is going to have to wait a few more months to get it … as if she is really looking forward to a third shot, which she isn’t.
 
So here we are talking about a fourth shot, putting a new bug in the minds of people in our country who claim to be “following the science,” and you can bet that within time, they will be trumpeting this fourth shot, because they started to back a third shot when Israel said it was beneficial, so you just know that a recommendation of fourth shot is probably right around the corner.
 
Enough is enough.
 
Our leaders have failed to communicate and convince millions that even a first shot is necessary, and now we are going to be moving onto a fourth shot?
 
I still believe that if they wouldn’t have told us lies at the beginning about the efficacy of these shots, that we would be like Israel is, at a 97 percent shot level.
 
We dropped the ball a year ago, and it is going to difficult to pick that ball up again and shoot a slam dunk through the hoop if we start looking seriously at a fourth shot.
 
There is only so much that even the populace who has two or even three shots will listen to.