Fully Vaccinated and Time to Party: If You Are 70

[Yonnie3]

From The New York Times 3-21-21 by Jennifer Steinhauer

Fully Vaccinated and Time to Party: If You Are 70


... snip ...

The upside-down world in which older Americans are drinking more martinis inside restaurants at a far greater rate than millennials will be short-lived. It’s a fleeting Covid-era interregnum in which the elders celebrate while their younger counterparts lurk in grocery stores in search of leftover shots or rage on social media, envious of those who have received a vaccine. In a few months, all that will most likely be over, and vaccines will be available to all who want them.

For now, about two-thirds of Americans over 65 have started the vaccination process and nearly 38 percent are fully vaccinated, compared with 12 percent of the overall population, giving the rest of the nation a glimpse into the after times.

... snip ...

Mrs. Bosseler, who is 85, is thrilled to go back to live games of Ping-Pong and mahjong at The Palace in Coral Gables.

“This is very exciting for me,” she said in a telephone interview.

She is happiest to get back to “relationship with friends,” she said.

... snip ...

“I am about ready to jump in a plane and fly, and the sooner the better,” Mr. Maidique said. He also teaches a course on “lessons in life, love and leadership” at Florida International University in Miami and “dreaded the thought of people being online and my not having the ability to interact with others,” he said.

... snip ...

Edit to add link I forgot: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/health/older-residents-covid-vaccine.html

This article is full of examples of older people assuming that because they have received the vaccine that they are immune. My understanding is that the vaccines significantly reduce the risk of having a severe case of COVID-19 rather than fully protecting the individual from the illness. Nowhere in the article do they mention this inconvenient fact.

[Phoenix61]

1. Depends which vaccine you get as to how well

you are protected from illness. Both of the two shot vaccines are over 95% effective at preventing disease. J&J is at 67%. However, they were tested at different times/places so really shouldn’t compare them. All prevent severe symptoms, hospitalization, and death.

[Yonnie3]

3. none provide 100% immunity

[KarenS]

2. jeez,,,, once again proving that folks just believe what they want to believe.

Our fully vaccinated day is this coming Saturday,,,, We plan to do very little differently than we have been doing,,,,

Do I miss doing things? Yes. Do we like staying home all the time? Nope. but we're in the middle of a pandemic.

[Yonnie3]

6. Human nature ...

TJ has been fully vaccinated for more than a month since she works in a medical laboratory. I'm getting my second shot at the end of the month.

We worry less, but are still careful. I will go ahead and take care of some medical screenings I postponed, but don't envision any major changes in my behavior anytime soon.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. I'll get my 2nd dose in a few weeks, but I'll continue...

... to wear a mask in public.

I could still carry and transmit the virus to others, for all I know.

Having been in a building, other than my home, only 4 times (including when I received the 1st dose) during the past year... I am definitely going to be "out" more after the second shot. Nothing too crazy, but more than my current hermit life. Job-hunting will be a part of it too, given my dwindling savings. (No unemployment benefits the entire time.)

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. I assume they're generally not as obnoxious as...

... the "South Park" old people?

The parts showing their (unrealistic) behavior were the only ones that made me laugh in that recent episode.

I couldn't find a clip of the old guy noisily burning motorcycle tire rubber in a circle, on the school parking lot, unfortunately.

[Yonnie3]

8. I thought of this South Park episode when I read the article

[magicarpet]

5. Mutation of a virus, new strains and new variants develop.

PUBLIC HEALTH
The Most Worrying Mutations in Five Emerging Coronavirus Variants
Here is a guide to novel versions of the COVID-causing virus—and genetic changes that can make them more contagious and evasive in the body

By Sara Reardon on January 29, 2021

When the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 burst upon the world last winter, scientists knew it was bad. But they also thought it was stable. Coronaviruses do not mutate as readily as the viruses that cause the flu, hepatitis or AIDS, for instance—thanks in part to a molecular “proofreading” system that SARS-CoV-2 and its kin use to prevent damaging genetic errors when replicating.

Researchers were only partly right. The virus is indeed bad—but it is not so stable after all. SARS-CoV-2 has been acquiring minor random mutations ever since it jumped from animals to humans. These mutations can take the form of single-letter typos in the viral genetic code or deletions or insertions of longer stretches. When they occur, most mutations either kill the virus or cause no change in its structure or behavior.

But in recent months, several new variants of the original virus (also called the wild type) have been spotted that appear to cause major changes in the way the pathogen acts, including alterations to its contagiousness. These viral versions have seemingly popped up in rapid succession in different geographical regions, such as the U.K., South Africa and Brazil, and in some cases have outcompeted the existing variants. Although improved surveillance and sequencing efforts might partly explain why these variants are appearing now, some repetition in their patterns suggest the mutations are not random.

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“What we’re seeing is similar mutations arising in multiple places,” says Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan. “That’s pretty suggestive that these mutations are doing something.”

Specifically, they appear to help the virus transmit more readily and evade the immune system. This month researchers reported, for the first time, that antibodies from individuals with COVID did not completely neutralize a variant first identified in South Africa. A few people who recovered from the disease also appear to have been reinfected with the mutant virus.

Much more at link below,..

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-most-worrying-mutations-in-five-emerging-coronavirus-variants/

[NNadir]

9. I am fully vaccinated and am doing my best, nonetheless, to go with the program.

First off, I don't want to go around without a mask lest people think I'm a dumb assed Republican.

Second, it's not clear whether or not I can be a carrier.

All this said, I definitely feel liberated at home. The vaccines do fully protect most people.

I was walking around Princeton yesterday however, and it was a pretty wild scene; most people were wearing masks, but if I wasn't fully vaccinated - my wife is having her second shot on Thursday - we would have left.