Just got word today that my employer will be providing my COVID vaccination.

[RandySF]

No timetable yet, but given the nature of my workplace, COVID vaccinations are mandatory with exceptions and I will be notified of my appointment. It's just a matte of staying healthy until then.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. What fantastic news for you, my dear RandySF!

I'm sure you'll stay healthy.

I'm so pleased for you!

[LeftInTX]

2. A friend of mine is getting her's Wednesday at 4:45 pm: Radiation oncologist

[mwooldri]

3. My Gran is getting her jab next week.

UK's NHS - just got to get to the hospital. Definitely in the high risk category (98)... My parents and aunts are later on down the list.

My sister recently left the NHS to work for the police as a forensic nurse (was disgusted by her treatment while doing Covid duty - colleagues got bonus pay, she got a thank you card - she worked part time and bonus was for full time nurses) so she's probably in the general population for receiving the vaccine now...

Me and my US family will get our jabs when they become available to us.

[The King of Prussia]

8. Great excitement here

Our GP got a supply yesterday. I'm quite a way down the pecking order, but still... positive first step.

[dawg day]

4. I'm so glad for you!

Also envious. Be immune for all of us!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Good news.

But what is the timeline? Are you a first responder? Someone who works in a nursing home? A retail employee?

It's going to be a long, long, long time before even half of this country is vaccinated, even assuming no anti-vaxxers and an orderly progression of vaccination. And no serious side-effects or fucked up vaccines that derail the process.

Personally, I'm anticipating sufficiently serious side effects that might slow things down, or something as awful as the screw up in the polio vaccine where live polio was introduced into a vaccine -- the company totally fucked up here -- giving actual polio to a whole bunch of kids. Or even something like the Swine Flu vaccine that gave Guillain - Barre to a bunch of people.

Everyone who thinks this will be a wonderful and totally smooth roll-out of the vaccine is delusional. There will be things that go wrong. Plus, this isn't a vaccine that actually confers immunity, which most people don't get. It's a vaccine that apparently mitigates the virus to some degree. So you still can get it, but you won't get as sick as you might have without the vaccine. Hooray. Meanwhile, if you get the virus you can still be very contagious and pass it on to others. Hmmm. I'm needing a reminder as to why this vaccine is worth giving.

Oh, and in the absolutely best case scenario, you still need to stay at home at least until some time after your SECOND shot of the two-part vaccine. Keep on wearing your mask. Who here thinks that most people will continue wearing masks after that first shot? Raise your hands, so I can see you. Uh huh. I'm seeing a lot fewer than half of you.

Here's what's going to happen. The vaccine will be rolled out and given, as it should be, to medical care people and those in nursing homes. Remember, it's a two part vaccine. The medical folks will be very good about continuing to wear their masks, and of course those in nursing homes won't have a choice. In several months, sometime in the spring, the vaccine will be distributed to more and more people. And a lot of them, immediately after the first shot, will toss away the mask, thinking they are now immune. Well, they're not. Keep in mind this isn't (as I said above) a vaccine that actually confers immunity. So even if every single person who gets the first shot actually shows up for the second (and I'll bet money that as few as half of them will) if they toss the masks right away, and don't understand that they can still get this disease and infect others, the rate of infections and deaths will continue to climb well into next year.

For those of you who haven't already seen my WWII analogy, here it is.

Pretend it's the spring of 1939, and you and I are planning a trip to Europe next year. This has been in the works for several years now. We've both saved money like crazy, worked extra to afford this, and we can hardly wait. It will be truly the trip of a lifetime! But then, September rolls around and WWII breaks out. Oh, crap. Clearly we won't be taking that trip next year, but we're optimistic that the war won't last very long, and we'll go in 1941. Well, the war doesn't end soon. It goes on, and on. It doesn't finally end until the middle of 1945. The soonest we might possibly take that long postponed trip is 1946, maybe a year or two after. And when we finally get there, the Europe of 1946 is not at all like the Europe of 1939. Nothing is remotely the same. And it will never be.

That's what this disease is going to do to us. It's going to last longer than people realize, and things will change far more than any of us could have imagined. Heck, just to talk about my own plans. I like taking cruises. I've only taking two so far in my life. The second was from March 1 to March 18 earlier this year. It was a cruise to Hawaii and was absolutely wonderful. I really hope I can take more cruises in the future, but at this point, who knows? I'm also a science fiction person and go to various cons, none of which are happening right now. I honestly think none of them will happen until 2022. The cons are probably going to resume well before cruises. My personal point is that I love travelling and hope that I can resume the travels I care about.

[RandySF]

6. I work in a medical provider setting

I’m administrative staff but we all have to be vaccinated.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. That's good, but my questions are not being answered.

What's the timeline? Yes, medical professionals need to be first in line, but how long will it take to vaccinate all of them? And those who live in nursing homes? How about retail workers? Will they be next? I certainly hope so.

How will side effects be handled? Well, okay, to start with, how serious are side effects likely to be?

And how will it be made sure that people get the second dose when they should? I understand that the health workers who've gotten the first shot today (and tomorrow and well into next week) will be conscientious about the second shot, but how about the great unwashed? What kind of protocol will be there to make sure they get the second shot? Because they will NOT be immune to the virus after the first shot, and actually even after the second shot (as I understand it) will still not be immune but will instead be less likely to get real sick. Hmmm. Remind me again why this is a vaccine?

Oh, and how persnickity is the time between first and second shots? What is the leeway? I recently got the shingrix vaccine for shingles. The time frame for the second shot was a full four months. So, for the one shot that says 21 days, is 23 days ok? How about 30? Or 40? I know I'm sounding like a bit of a jerk, but this is very important.

Anyway, we are all going to continue to stay isolated. observe social distancing, keep on wearing our masks for a long time. Well into the middle of next year. And those who don't? Look forward to higher and higher infection and death rates.

Shall we set up some kind of a pool about total deaths at specific dates? I'd go with the WorldOmeters site, but I'd be happy with any other one those here deem appropriate.

I'll start the bidding. We are already above 300k. So I'll say, 500k by February. And 1 million by May.

Yes, I am that cynical.

[TomSlick]

12. Link to a calculator in NY Times that purports to tell you where you stand in the line.

[link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/03/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-timeline.html|

I seem to be the last person in my rural Arkansas county that will get a shot.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Yes, I had seen that.

Purely based on my age, I'm ahead of a bunch of health workers and some teachers, which doesn't seem fair.

Because I am so healthy, retired, don't need to go out much, I should be pretty much last in line. Personally I think people like all teachers, prisoners, prison guards, and all retail workers/anyone whose job has them interacting with the public should go ahead of me.

That would not be true for most older people, but I have the good fortune to be insanely healthy.

[TomSlick]

18. Surely, you could pass your place in line to those you think more in need.

I will rush to get my shot as soon as possible. If the NYT site is to be credited, that will be no time soon.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. I essentially plan to do that.

I will be slow about getting the vaccine myself.

I really hope that all medical people, including any and all who work in a hospital or nursing home or any other medical setting whatsoever, that they all get the vaccine before me. And prison guards and inmates. There are any number of categories of people who are at far more risk than I am. I'm lucky, and I know that.

[Demsrule86]

14. Hubs is designated an essential worker.

[NJCher]

7. Sad to say, but

I think this is a pretty realistic scenario.

One of the lessons I’ve taken from this pandemic is that the people in this country are not very bright. I never had a high opinion of this in the first place, but the recklessness in disregarding the facts shocks even me.

The potential is there for a semblance of the lives we had before, but we really do have to factor in the stupid element in how the vaccine rollout will take place.

The “my rights” mentality also works against us.

The African and Asian countries will show us what could be. Of course we will fail to see this because we’re so exceptional.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. I was an airline ticket agent for ten years, from 1969 to 1979.

I learned early on that most people are stupid, don't pay any attention to what you tell them, and complain bitterly about whatever you already warned them about.

I should post here about one particular Thanksgiving. I worked the night before. Every flight was booked full and then some. In normal times my shift would end around 10:30 in the evening, but that night, because of delays, we wound up finishing about 1am. I was scheduled to work the next morning at 6am. We had a back room with a cot, and I decided that it made more sense to spend the night there, rather than wait for the bus to take me home, get maybe 4 hours of sleep, get up and take the bus back the next morning. I asked my friend Ollie who worked the overnight shift at one of the rental car counters, if he'd please wake me up the next morning. God bless him, he did, and handed me a cup of coffee when he showed up. Because one of our flights had cancelled the night before, and all of those passengers were rebooked the next day, every one of them saw me the night before and now the next morning. Many of them took one look at me, and said, "OMG, did you spend the night here???" I cheerfully lied and said no, even though I certainly looked as if I'd spent the night there, which I had.

During that morning, my co-worker and I wrote lots and lots of tickets, and back then the tickets we wrote generated a lot of parts that were normally thrown away. In the first couple of hours (from 6am to 8am) we filled our two trash cans up, and simply started tossing the excess on the floor. About 11am, when our flights had all left, Martha, the cleaning lady showed up, and was clearly horrified by the level of trash behind our counter. Martha was wonderful, and we treasured her. Judy (my co-worker) and I happily scooped up all the trash and assisted Martha that day.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Thank you.

Even in the best possible scenario in this country, that everyone gets the vaccine in order, that will take a very, very long time. Even without anti-vaxxers the entire country, or enough to achieve real herd immunity, won't happen until well into the latter part of 2021. And then there's the rest of the world. At the moment, the vaccines that have been approved require some ridiculously low temperature to keep it safe. That's fine in first world countries, but in third world countries? Something else will be needed. I do understand that vaccines not requiring such low storage temps are in the works.

[BlueSpot]

17. Put the paranoia in a box, please

The vaccine is a huge step forward and you're making it sound like the end of the world. People won't wear masks? People aren't wearing masks today, if you haven't noticed, but no one has any protection at all except our own masks. The vaccine offers way more than that. It'll take a week or two after the second shot? WTF difference does that make after waiting all these months already? Should we skip it and go indefinitely? Not me. Yes, some people will be stupid. Some always are. But they will have some measure of protection which is better than nothing. And the numbers of people saying they will get the vaccine is increasing, another good sign. They say the Moderna vaccine actually prevents getting it. But I'll settle for it not being bad enough to need hospitalization, having seen and read about the effects of bad. If I have to get a booster in a year that provides immunity, I'm good with that. Right now the goal is to slow this thing down and minimize it's effects.

This isn't WWII and your analogy doesn't make any sense. We're not talking five years but so-called herd immunity sometime in Q3 or Q4 next year. A year and a half since it began. Pretty impressive, considering. It would probably be five years or even longer without the vaccine. So yeah, let's just not bother if it isn't perfect, right? No. Wrong.

Europe of 1946 was a bombed out mess. I've noticed a lot of f-bombs being dropped due to the stress and strain of trying to live through 2020. I've dropped a few myself. But they sure aren't the fire bombs that fell on Dresden in WWII or the nukes that fell on Japan (though that strays from your Europe analogy). I think the world is going to look a little different when we come out the other side, but it sure as hell won't be as different as Europe 1946 vs Europe 1940. Obviously, we'll be missing a lot of people and that's going to hurt a lot of people. The most realistic part of your analogy is the number of dead and I fear we will well exceed WWII on that. We'll also be missing some local businesses and restaurants that couldn't make it through. But, boy howdy, the pent up demand when we can move around again is sure going to lead people back into small business. Won't happen overnight but I bet it happens faster than you seem to think it will. When people feel safe to go out, to see a movie or hit the mall, it's going to be a rebirth.

That rebirth is going to be because of the vaccines you're playing down because you apparently need to clutch your pearls. Clutch them all day and get out of my way because when the vaccine is available to me, I will be there to get it. And I will go back for the second one. And you and all the other pearl clutchers can stay at home and whine about it not being perfect while I take action to be safer. You'll figure it out eventually.

[Demsrule86]

13. Good news. I think hubs will also get the vaccine through his work...don't know if I will or my our

daughter will.

[Wounded Bear]

15. I'm hanging on for when the VA gets it...nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

20. My partner's hospital just received 1900 doses.

No word yet as to when he gets his. Not sure how many employees his hospital has.

I always figured if I get COVID-19 it will be through him as we are really careful - other than him treating COVID patients and COVID suspected patients.

My partner does MRIs and CAT scans and they’ve had a few “diminished cognitive function” COVID patients. So I want to slap people who say “it’s just the flu” - fucking idiots.

He’s had a couple younger (“invincible”) coworkers get sick - probably from going out to bars and restaurants etc.