For what it’s worth....,The virus is or can be pretty awful......
I have friends who had it.......yes they survived but their details are horrific
I had my reasons for taking the vaccine, and I stand by it.
That is a very good point. A good friend of my wife had a serious case of COVID-19. The friend is 39 y/o, non-smoker, fairly active, a bit overweight but so far as I can tell in average health overall, and her hospitalization has been followed by almost 4 months of slow recovery. Her lungs are still problematic.
I figure my odds of such an outcome are around 1 in 10. The vaccine is a much lower risk: Not “zero”, but, the data so far, and the 30 years of prior research are encouraging.
It's a weird bug for sure, and individual responses to it vary - a lot.
I was at a gathering in late Feb, after which at least 4 people tested positive. I came down with symptoms at the same time (4 days post gathering) but didn't get tested. I just stayed home and tended to my health with antivirals, rest, fluids, etc. My experience is of a mild but lengthy illness which is in many ways similar to a cold but with loss of sense of smell. The latter came on suddenly like flipping a switch. I'm at 15 days and largely recovered. Exertion or cold air will tend to make me cough and my sense of smell is still impaired. I'm relieved that I've gotten it over with and my immune system hammered it down just fine. I never had trouble breathing or absorbing oxygen. I had coughing but not anything severe.
I'm in an area with a lot of COVID, and many nursing and care home deaths. In my immediate circle I have one elderly woman who died of complications of COVID. One friend has long COVID and is still very weak after 2+ months. The woman who stood beside me when we both got infected is on her 3rd day in the hospital. Another friend was hospitalized with pneumonia last winter. It wasn't diagnosed as COVID, but I suspect that's because of testing limitations. I have another 8 friends and family members who were diagnosed or had very early cases that were likely COVID. Some were pretty sick but not to the point of hospitalization. Our son works in an ER and hasn't had a sick day despite working with COVID daily. I suspect he had an early asymptomatic case.
Our county was one of the first in PA to shut down. We're now in the 2nd year of shutdown, masking, distancing. It hasn't stopped the spread, and now the more contagious UK variant is showing up. People are lying and cheating to get the shots before their neighbors and then bragging about it on FB. It's a weird time to be alive.