I had my inaugural dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Inauguration Day, a week ago today. This came about as a result of a notification from the Centers for Disease Control that I, as a 75+geezer, was eligible for the vaccine; all I had to do was fill out an online form, which I did, and scroll through the calendar for an available date at Norwalk General Hospital, which is just a 20-minute drive from my house. The whole process took less than half an hour; so did the inoculation procedure. The room wasn’t crowded — perhaps a dozen to 20 people, most medical and other “front-line” workers, there for the same reason as I.  A nurse checked my photo ID to make sure I was who I claimed to be, was the correct age, and had never experienced allergic reactions to previous vaccinations or from taking medications. Up went my sleeve, in went the needle.

Apres jab, I was sent to a waiting room to make sure I did not suffer an adverse reaction. I did not, and walked out to my car, having taken one small step toward a normal life, defined these days as a life free of worry that one will end one’s days isolated in an intensive care ward, wheezing through a ventilator. That liberation is, of course, a long way off. I have to get the second dose, scheduled for February 19, and figure it will be at least six months, probably a year, before most everyone else in the country is vaccinated and on their own roads to normality.

Still, I breathed a little easier. I was reminded of a day, a long, long time ago, when my mother took me to the doctor for the polio vaccine . Up until iJonas Salk invented it, every child and every parent lived in dread of that disease. Now we could go to the municipal swimming pool or to school without fear contracting it, and the possibility of a life on crutches or, worse, in an iron lung. 

My experience with the Covid vaccine was a happy one, compared with what other people have to go through. For example, my wife and sister-in-law spent many hours between them seeking an appointment for their 94-year-old mother, Molly Ware. She lives in Westchester County, N.Y., where the vaccine rollout is doing anything but rolling. After two days of searching, Leslie and Jennifer secured a slot for Molly fairly near her home — on April 5th! That was better than the first opening they found — on April 15 at a race track in Queens, many traffic-choked miles from Molly’s home in Rye, N.Y.

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