Good To Go

 It was just a coincidence that I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine almost an exact year after everything went to H-E-Double hockey sticks in a hand basketball.

  
It was interesting that almost nobody says “shot” when describing the vaccine.  The Powers That Be all seem to refer to it as a “jab.” 

I guess that makes it sound not as bad. Surely you can take a “jab.” (I can and don’t call me, Shirley.)

The administrators of my “jab” were cautious for what it is worth, and it didn’t hurt at all.  I didn’t have any real side effects from the vaccine.  My arm was sore, more the second time than the first. I felt some fatigue after the second dose.  Other than that, I was good to go.

I think that should be the theme of the rest of the year:  Good To Go.

Everything, good and bad, has an ending. We are just about there with this pandemic.

Oh sure, I’ll wear a mask. Whatever. Anything to keep people’s mouths shut. But I’ll be going through the motions, just like the people who only attend church on Christmas and Easter.

Confession:  when I wash my hands, I only sing “Happy Birthday” once through. Sorry, I’ll do better in the next pandemic.

As The Grateful Dead would say, what a long, strange trip it’s been.  It seemed like yesterday when we heard about Tom Hanks and his wife getting COVID.  If Forrest Gump could get “The Corona,” anybody could.

Then came President Trump’s speech and the cancellation of The NBA season. Everybody was ordered to stay at home unless you were an “essential” worker.  Americans sensed this was a national crisis, and we had to respond.

And we did. We bought every single roll of toilet paper in the store. 

To get our mind of the virus, we also watched a Nextflix show called “Tiger King.” We heard the Tiger King was in jail, and he had Covid too! Then it turned out he didn’t

Because of the virus, the economy went into a depression. It wasn’t a “Buddy, can you spare a dime” depression.  It was a “Buddy, can you recommend something on Netflix other than Tiger King” type of depression.  The government responded by printing money and sending it to everybody. What bad could come from that?

As a history major from a college located off of Interstate 75, how do I think history will remember Trump’s response to the Pandemic?

Well, let’s first admit that if Trump has a skill, it would be building a hospital instead of administrating one.  It is not in his wheelhouse to talk about medical stuff. If only he had a surgeon who separated conjoined twins in his cabinet to explain the medical jargon to the American people.

Instead, you had Trump come out and give his word salad, followed by Dr. Fauci.  People fell in love with Dr. Fauci, almost too much, because he wasn’t Trump.

When it first started, Fauci patiently explained that we didn’t want to overwhelm the hospitals with Covid patients.  We needed to “flatten the curve.”

Slowly, we went from flattening the curve to nobody ever gets sick.

Every attempt to get back to some normalcy was greeted with hysteria about some governor (pick a southern one) was going to have body bags in the street. At the same time, the whole country should follow the lead of Governor Cuomo of New York.

COVID-19 was an oddly political virus.  Gatherings like Thanksgiving, Christmas, football games, and anything a conservative might attend was pronounced “super spreaders.” Protests about social justice were not.

After it was announced that Joe Biden, after a hundred years of trying to become President, had actually won the Presidency despite not really campaigning, people gathered outside of The White House, some without masks, and drank from the same bottle of champagne.  They put their mouths on it and everything which would be nasty without a pandemic.

Our gallant news media sound nary a word.  But Aunt Mildred’s choir practice was a killer.

But all of that is behind us now. We have the vaccine.  The double doses slows the pace, and the demand was greater than the supply. But with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which requires just one jab, the number of Americans vaccinated should explode.

Which is good. We need to get back to normal. Normal is going to concerts and ball games.  Normal is going to church and Christmas dinner.

It is normal to fight traffic to go to a crowded beach.  It is normal to go on a cruise. It is normal to go to school.

Let’s get ready because it is almost time to go.