the Jab & I

 

THE JAB & I

What follows consists solely of casual, somewhat benign observations of the vaccines given to prevent or reduce effects of various diseases. This is not a researched thesis, and presents only what comes from the experiences and memory of an old man – memory always being a dangerous minefield.

The idea of using bits of an existing virus to ‘teach’ the human body how to deal with a real infection is certainly not new. It goes back a very long time, somewhere heard the Egyptians did it (but then they get credit for a lot of things). According to contemporary history controlled ‘inoculation’ dates to the reign of Queen Victoria, whose official public backing stopped the plague of Small Pox. Truth be told, opposition based on ignorance, superstition, and/or rumor goes back just as long.

For hundreds of years, under greatly varied circumstances and peoples, vaccines have taken some time to develop, test, and prove. Even with all this they are not expected to be totally effective. Different people have different reactions; and better than about 70% effective is considered real good. Also, time, experiences, and availability have sometimes shown really bad side effects and outcomes (have you ever listened to those drug commercials on TV?). But, the overall testimony of history is that civilization is better off with vaccines because risks are dwarfed by benefits.

My Introduction to the subject came with the Polio epidemic in St. Louis when I was five years old. To this moment I can see the fear in my mother’s eyes when she thought I had Polio symptoms. She said that if there ever was a vaccine for it she’d sell everything to get it for her children. When in came it was free. For the record, Polio had much the same effects as Covid-19. Polio just did not have nearly as many infections and deaths in one year.

When I transferred schools for 7^th grade the principal was required to actually see my Small Pox shot scar. Don’t know if proof of Polio shot was required in schools.

Much later during my short-lived and inglorious time in Air Force we were given both Salk and Sabin dosages along with Small Pox vaccine and a lot of other government approved stuff. Most of us had already gotten the Salk & Small Pox, but nobody would have thought to refuse a lawful order. It was something we called “duty, honor, country”.

In 2020 Covid-19 was declared a “Pandemic” – that is, it’s everywhere and not just an American problem! Enter ‘Operation Warp Speed’ of the Trump administration. In about nine months three vaccines were approved for use by Trump’s CDC. They were produced by independent business entities aware of risks involved and facing incalculable financial loss if their product failed. As of now these vaccines are being administered all over world. Much of the basic research had been going on for years, computers and the Internet greatly shortened the time it would take to develop a vaccine. Even Trump has taken it, and recommended it at a recent show he put on in Ohio. Just as computers greatly speeded up creating a new vaccine, spreading nonsense on Internet speeded up the opposition. For my part, well, governments come and go; but malpractice lawyers live forever.

When the Covid vaccine became available to us old folks earlier this year I sent an inquiry to my doctor which included my reservations:

The only time I took the seasonal virus vaccine would have been in 2004. I reacted very badly; and, to the best of my recollection, in all my hospitalizations it was only time I was sick enough to let a nurse give me a bath. For reasons which he never told me my doctor at time definitively would not give me this vaccine in the years I continued to be his patient. I never asked why not and have not had one since.

With my good doctors approval, Kay’s encouragement, and my rare exercise of good sense, I got ‘the Jab’ (yeah, right, you’ve got to be a Brit to use that term).

Now comes news of something called the “Delta Variant”. Covid being a contagious disease, as required by law hospitals and Public Health departments report a scary rise in these cases. Reportedly it is much more contagious and deadly than good, old-fashioned Covid. According to publicly available information, where Delta has been spread hospitals are being overwhelmed, running out of ICU beds, and even turning away non-Covid patients. Broadcast interviews with directly involved hospital administrators, doctors, and nurses estimate about 90% of these new patients are not vaccinated. Seems situation is about as bad or worse than before Operation Warp Speed made vaccines available, except now there’s no excuse. Glad the Jab & I got together.

The 44th Wizard of Us - V

 

The 44^th Wizard of Us – Part V

from Brazil Times blog of June 20, 2013

Once more taken up is the tale told forty-three instances beforetime -- this episode of the story being the 44th Wizard of Us. The first of this tale some day to be told -- the last as yet unwritten.

The Wizard had, as they all do, long since learned no magic wand was issued to any Wizard. The problems would not solve themselves, and there would be no instant solutions to any issue making its way to the Royal Round Room. Wizards also found that taking on of the Cloak of Authority yielded no supernatural abilities. In the course of events each Wizard receives in his turn both admiration for good he did not conceive and antagonism for things done by those he would never know.

The anniversary of the year of Jubilee was again upon the Land of Us. All due honor would be done for those who so long ago laborious scribed the Dogmas of the Dominion, which must ever be honored. That the Dogmas no longer met most, even many, of the needs of the Land would again be varnished over.

It was nowhere written in the Dogmas, but everyone knew it was incumbent upon all Wizards to impose these divine truths of the Dominion on all other lands. Many Wizards before he had gone forth to battle in order to so impose. Naturally neither Wizards nor they of the Circle of Demagogues actually went themselves; preferring to send to their death sons and daughters of proletariat.

Demands for action, any action, in someone else’s land, anyone else’s land, came both from they who had chosen the Wizard and they of the Pfabricators sect. The latter fully and readily prepared to cast aspersion on the Wizard whether outcome be good or ill.

Wizards are inevitably admonished by declaration of Pfabricators, “Here, this faction of disputants is the side of righteousness on which the Land of Us must stand, and not the leading Demigod. Simply remove him and all that land will ascribe to the Dogmas. Failure to send to their death sons and daughters of proletariat would dishonor the sons and daughters of proletariat already having died.”

Such incursion, without benefit of right or law, had been undertaken before by earlier Wizards, of course. And, having far superior legerdemain, such lands quickly overrun. Unfortunately, as no Wizard seemed to learn, if the forces of the Land of Us were to stand a thousand years in these conquered lands, all would be as before on the day after those forces withdrew.

Only such as Squire Charles and those who would hear out truth understood incursion of another’s land must reap the whirlwind. But, it seems it is impossible for a Wizard to fail to do what all other Wizards had failed in doing.

So, as the tale is told, the Land of Us chooses some side in some existing battle (there is always one, somewhere). As it is with lands and humans in turmoil, each existing faction hated the other almost as much as each hated whoever happened to be Wizard of the Land of Us.

Alas, it is a tale told, with certain variation, these forty-three instances beforetime – the end not now assured by wizards or prognosticators or storytellers.