My buddy Jim Newman wrote to say…well, why should I summarize it? You can read it for yourself…
Congratulations on getting the first dose of the vaccine. You end your 'blog post by writing, "it's 100% effective against my physician telling me I'm a friggin' idiot for not getting this done."
This implies (but does not state) that you did not ask your physician first. I'm assuming that you DID ask first. I think that conversation with your doctor is an important part of this story.
In just the past couple of days, I've met a couple of people who seem very doubtful about the vaccine. They did not seem to be anti-vaxxers in general, just anti-this-vax. Based on their gender and their race (which, I know is dangerous to base anything on) they did not seem like they'd subscribe to the current conspiracy theories being put forth about it. I'm talking about the theories from a faction of people who also seem to believe that Mr. Trump put on safety goggles and lit the Bunsen burners in the labs that developed the vaccines. Despite giving him credit for developing it, they want no part of it.
So, I think your journey before Philippe's and Dodger Stadium are important for people to understand.
First off, I should say that I think we give presidents (every one of them) too much credit/blame for things that happened on their watch. And we shouldn't define their "watch" as the precise time period they occupied the Oval Office. The impact — good and bad — of each president's actions or inactions can extend many years after their terms expire. Which is not to say they don't also cause our world to change — again for good or bad — while they're in power.
Yes, my doctor told me to go get vaccinated and when I e-mailed him that I'd secured an appointment, he wrote back a message that just said, "Great."
I like my doctor a lot. He wouldn't be my doctor if I didn't like him a lot. And I'm a big believer in having a doctor I like and trusting him…not blindly but a lot. I'm also really skeptical of medical advice from people, however well-read and intentioned, who have not done that little, insignificant-to-them step of graduating Medical School and securing a license to practice.
No, let me rephrase that: I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really skeptical of medical advice from people, however well-read and intentioned, who have not done that little step of graduating Medical School and securing a license to practice. I have had friends who I believe killed themselves or others with Pretend Medical Advice.
It's always been like this and the Internet, while it has made many things oh-so-better has made this worse. No matter what nutty, baseless, unscientific thing you want to believe, you can find someone on the 'net who'll tell you it's the only way to go. Many years ago, I wrote a cartoon on the premise of "If they said it on television, it must be true" — and I even hired the most convincing, sincere person in the world, Gary Owens, to play the announcer. A brief excerpt…
If I were doing that show today, I'd do "If you saw it on the Internet, it must be true."
So around 325 days ago, my doctor warned me about the coronavirus and advised me to stay home, buy masks, not socialize, etc. — excellent advice that most doctors were saying a week or two later — and I've done it and I haven't gotten sick and I'm continuing to listen to this man and I place great trust in what he tells me.
I don't think he or any doctor is infallible…and certainly, with something as new to the world as this particular virus, Science has had to learn as it goes along and we all have to keep updating what we know. But I'm pretty sure that at any given time, he knows more than I do. He explained to me the problems with distribution of the vaccine, which are many. He told me he doesn't know when his office will be getting a supply, nor does he know how much they'll get and which of the two vaccines it will be. And he told me to get one — either Pfizer or Moderna — by any means I could.
For those of you who dwell in Los Angeles, I found my appointment via this website. At the moment, there are very few appointments open but I secured mine ten days ago because my doctor — this is my primary care physician I've been talking about here — directed me to it. Actually, I also got e-mails about it from my gastroenterologist and a few other specialists who've bettered my body.
So that's how I got my appointment and I decided, as they say in Hamilton, "I am not throwin' away my shot." So many folks have already have been inoculated only trivial, outlier reports of side effects that I was convinced it was safe…or if it wasn't, I was at least safer with it than without it. I cannot testify that its effectiveness is everything they say it is but I believe "they" — the overwhelming majority of the medical community — are right way more often than the minority and the Pretend Doctors.
One very unfortunate condition in this country — and the rise of Trump made this worse but did not invent this — is the intermingling of political opinion with science. Just because Trump said it doesn't make it true. Doesn't make it false either. Too many people were in denial about this disease early on because politicians they liked were in denial about it…and some of both are still stubbornly refusing to admit it's as bad as it is. I can't change those minds but I could go get vaccinated. I'm so sure that it's the right thing to do that I'm going to double-down and do it again in four weeks.