Getting Booster Shot Was An Easy Call

by Kevin Burton

   Got a glorious soreness in my left arm last Friday.  It felt great.

   I signed up for a moment of pain, a period of soreness, then months of relief.

   Maybe you guessed it. I’m talking about getting my Covid 19 booster shot. Put a little spring in my step for a quick minute there.

   I love it after I have a good workout and for the next day or two my muscles ache. That’s a virtuous ache because I finally did something I know I should do more often.

   This arm ache was even better. 

   Behind this ache is the knowledge of a massive international human effort for good and the relief to know such a thing    is still possible. 

   Much of the worldwide medical community dropped overnight whatever it had been working on, to find a vaccine for Covid 19 and its variants. The Atlantic had an article about it a few months ago. One Covid 19 article that served to unite among thousands that served to divide us.

   Also in my soreness there was a solidarity with right-minded relatives, friends and countrymen who have gotten the shots to protect themselves and others.

   I did my part and felt good about doing it. They didn’t hand out stickers to us re-vaccinated the way they do for voters on election day. I guess my mask was my sticker, saying live and let live.

   But it’s complicated, as the kids say.

   Consider the woman who was clearly in line to get a booster but who nevertheless did not give my wife and me the kind of social distance I would have hoped for as we stood in line.

   Everything is more complicated in virus world.

   The shots do have potential side effects.  Those hit our household a little bit more than they did with the first round of shots.  We’re hoping that there will be some kind of Covid-19 pill that we can take to be safe by the time we need another round of boosters.

   In fact such a pill is under development. In the USA it has gone to the Food and Drug Administration for testing.

   There was a class I took as a senior in high school called Problems of Democracy, or POD.  The curriculum was much as the title would indicate. What it didn’t teach us was how to be a good citizen.

   A good parent takes steps to make sure his or her child doesn’t get measles, mumps or the rest of what they call childhood diseases.  The good citizen part that goes with it means citizen their children will not be spreading disease to other children.

   We teach our children to cover their mouths when the sneeze don’t we?  Why do we do that?

   This is not a difficult question or concept.

   Virus fatigue is a real thing. I understand it.   People are tired of the measures and want to go back to “normal.”

   Unfortunately the virus doesn’t have fatigue. To the contrary, it has stayin’ alive instincts called mutations that keep it going and keep our scientists working.

   The assisted living facility where my mother now lives has been a big disappointment in many regards. One is that they don’t have a person checking temperatures at the front desk when we got to visit on weekends. It’s as if they think the virus takes weekends off just as they do.

   But rather than go from that to everything that’s wrong with the virus response, I’ll take another moment to be grateful for the vaccine. 

   I’m grateful that it is readily available where I live. I’m grateful there are responsible people promoting national health and safety by urging people to get the shots. I’m grateful there are medical professionals to help with vaccine side-effects when necessary.

   I’m grateful that there is a God who is greater than this virus and any other that might develop.