https://nitter.net/PhilHollowayEsq/status/1472342438354341891
https://nitter.net/ChrisCillizza/status/1471866393926815745#m
I’ve been thinking a lot about why the latest surge has hit me so hard and I think it’s because I have been fooling myself — to some extent — for the last 18 months
I told myself that the reason to get vaccinated (and boosted) was a) to avoid serious illness if I got Covid and b) to keep myself from passing the virus along to my mom (and other more vulnerable people)
That was what all the experts said the vaccine did. It lessened our chances of severe infection, hospitalization and death.
But, deep down, I think I believed that being vaccinated (and boosted) would keep me from getting Covid-19 AT ALL.
Why? Not sure, honestly. But I spent the better part of a year waiting for a vaccine and doing everything I could to keep my family from getting the virus. It’s hard to just turn that switch off.
I think that’s why yesterday — when it felt like every person I knew was either being diagnosed with Covid or had been exposed to it — hit me so hard.
Because the reality is — and has always been even if I didn’t realize it — that the vaccines don’t, really, prevent you from getting the virus. Or, at least, they don’t guarantee it won’t happen.
My friend @cwarzel described the view of many people he knew as “chill” about the reality that lots and lots of us (maybe all?) are going to get Covid at some point in the not-too-distant future.
I’m, um, not in the “chill” stage. But, I at least am realizing how badly I miscalculated what the vaccine means and what it is supposed to do.
According to all the available data, it’s doing its job (preventing serious illness and death among those infected). But it can never do what I had hoped: Ensure no one I loved will become infected.
My work now is getting used to that reality. I realize I am way behind lots of other people in doing that. But, you have to start somewhere.
SUCKERS! FOOLS.