Happy Friday! [NOT 29/1/21]

drawing of smiling sun with a baner saying "happy weekend"

Hi friends! I got my first covid vaccine shot today!

I enrolled in Moderna’s phase 3 trial and once it got approved they said they would set up plans to unblind study participants and vaccinate the folks that got the placebo.

Welp, turns out I had the placebo shots in Sept/Oct. So, shot #1 happened today. Apparently they’re not turning down the chance to collect any data because SURPRISE! I also got another nose stabby stabby covid test and they drew blood for analyzing or something. Who knows.

Anyways, I am very appreciative of Moderna vaccinating all their human guinea pigs. 🙂 If you have any questions about the trial process, ask away!

I’m watching the fantastic 80s movie Trading Places tonight in honor of Reddit fucking around with hedge funds this week.

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37 Comments

  1. I got my Pfizer vaccine yesterday.  I was planning to wait for a while, because I work from home now and almost never leave so I didn’t want to skip the line ahead of anyone who needed it more.  But, the hospital I work for put out a company-wide email basically saying they need to get their stock of shots in people’s arms so everyone who can needed to come in.  I get my next one in 3 weeks.  Mrs. Butcher will be eligible starting next week, but because she’s one of the unwashed masses, the process for getting her vaccinated is going to be a huge pain in the ass.
     
    Last night I watched Young Frankenstein in honor of Cloris Leachman.  That movie still kills.

  2. Congrats! I can’t wait until I can get the vaccine, but of course I have no special qualifiers so I’ll be waiting a while 😒. And I really hope they get approval for kids soon. 
     
    My husband probably qualifies as having 1-2 comorbidities, so he’s going to ask his doctor about scheduling the vaccine when he sees her for a virtual appointment next week. 

  3. I’m guessing the blood draw was for an antibody test, to see if you may have gotten COVID and recovered already.
    I think I’ve probably said this before, but I’m not too worried about COVID personally – I rarely get sick, I don’t think I’ve ever had the flu, and I’m pretty anti-social and generally low risk (I avoid people, and I was washing my hands back before there was a pandemic…).  But, I don’t want to be someone who gets it asymptomatically, and then goes around and spreads it to others, so I’m wearing a mask, and will get the vaccine when my turn comes up.
    I’m hoping that as more versions of the vaccine roll out, combined with having at least a semi-competent administration, that we can resume something approaching normal life in this calendar year.  I’d like to go hang out in a bar and read, go see a movie in the theater, and see some artist I like playing live nearby.  I’d also like to make a dentist appointment, now that I have insurance and the ability to take time off.  And start working up to a full bike commute.  and find a RPG group…

      • oh, yeah, that’s a good bit. 
        I’m guessing they are testing something else as well, and keeping reserves for further testing?  and probably need different types of blood samples – did you notice if the tubes had different colored tops?  I can never remember, but the color of the cap is related to the additives/stabilizers/anticoagulants/etc. in the tube, and some types of tests can only be run on some types, etc.

        • They all had orange caps but I wasn’t close enough to read the labels.

          I am also assuming some vials will get frozen so in a few years they can do long term testing on the contents. 

          • Orange or gold would mean a clot activator, so they’re separating the blood cells out and only testing the serum. Unfortunately that doesn’t tell us much about what type of test they’re doing – any sort of chemistry or immunology test would be in serum. It’s a good guess about freezing for later testing – if you’re going to save any sample long term, I think you’d only save serum.
             
            I used to work with blood. 

          • I’m hoping that now that the there is a semi-competent administration in the federal government, it won’t be solely up to state governments, and maybe things will speed up a bit…

            • So! About that!

              Missouri’s governor is a useless republican. He’s basically delegated the federal vaccine site rollout to the Missouri Highway Patrol to oversee for whatever reasons.

              So they’re finding sites where the regional offices are located. Which means that there will be 9 sites statewide, but many of them in places like Poplar Bluff (population 17k) for the bootheel region vs about 75 miles away in Cape Girardeau (population 50k). 

              Similarly, the spot for the greater St Louis area will be in Weldon Spring (population 6k, 30 miles from downtown, no public transportation).

              So even when the National Guard shows up and they get the tents and start saying they have mass vaccination sites, I still think it’s going to be a fucking mess designed to hurt poorer folks. 

    • @Hannibal haha I almost brought her up but didn’t want to be crazy cat lady always talking about her cat. She’s doing better every day. Still ridiculously clumsy with the cone and struggling to eat with it. I have to clean the kitchen floor and wipe out her cone every time she eats. But other than some frustration with the cone and not being able to groom, she seems pretty content, and acting like her normal cuddly needy self. Even let me hold a damp cloth to her sutures a few times. Tomorrow morning will be her last dose of pain relief, and then it’s just antibiotics for a little over a week. Then staples come out and cone can come off. 

      • If she’s letting you clean off her cone and still cuddling with you, I’d consider that a success.
         
        Not that it isn’t difficult, but it sounds like she’s taking things about as well as can be expected for a cat.  Hoping it continues that way!  🙂

        • Same! I’m hoping that the end of pain relief medication won’t be a problem, but I guess we’ll see by tomorrow evening. 
           
          She’s a very good natured cat. I got her way back when I was working as a vet tech assistant. She was a stray kitten that animal control brought in and all she wanted to do was cuddle everyone. I had to give her a flea bath and she just purred and head bumped me the whole time. 

  4. Lady Miss Meme, who works at a hospital, is already vaccinated (both shots). Unfortunately, according to the state, I am not eligible until May. I’m fine with waiting, as I’m  not in any group of high-risk individuals,  but given the timelines in other states, May seems like awfully far out.

  5. Congratulations to everyone ’round here who’s been able to get them so far!!
    I’m… frustrated and pretty fuckin’ pissed off about what happened here, this week.
     
    Y’all might remember that our school district was allotted 80 doses last week (we’re one of the biggest districts in the state, so we got one of the biggest allotments.)
    I missed the call, so wasn’t able to get it *last* week🙃 but I was told “it should be the 25th or 26th, so don’t worry!” 
     
    Because with my ‘beetus and airway stuff, AND with my roommate being on immunosuppressive meds, my bosses have known for MONTHS now that I wanted it as soon as I could get it, AND with my health stuff, I *do* honestly qualify for being one of the early folks in our tier…
    Somewhere between the emails some of us responded with last week, AND the 1400+ dose allotment the district got *this* week, shit went sideways HARD.😕
     
    I’m STILL loathing a decent–as of yet unknown–number of asshole co-workers in my district, too.
     
    Because apparently, when the emails went out THIS week, not only did *many* of us who responded last week with “YES!!!! PLEASE!!!! to the offer of vaccinations then fall out of the queue😖😑🥺…
     
    But, because the emails allowing folks to sign up went out with a generic password, plenty of ASSHOLES who work for our district *then* shared the sign up email with their friends and family members. 😒😠😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
     
    Meaning that–because they aren’t checking ID’s, to VERIFY the shots are actually going to school & pre-K school staff, these walking bags-o-dicks moved in and basically stole the allotments for multiple school workers who ARE hands on in special ed sites, where “social distancing” really *isn’t* possible.
     
    I fucking HATE people right now.
     
    And I honestly HOPE that the dickheads who shared that email BOTH get fined for everyone who got a shot off their sharing it, AND that they get fired for theft.
     
    Because, REALLY, that’s what this is.
     
    Yes, the state and federal government are paying for the shots… but I’m sure our insurance providers are going to have to pony up some for it, too… and that is both insurance fraud (when folks who are NOT covered by the district’s plan take advantage of *our* coverage🤨
     
    And theft of state & public-ed funds, too…
    Not to mention, that *because we ARE special ed,* this could be a FAPE & SPED Law violation, too–because we were supposed to be the first district employees recieving shots, because we’ve got the kids who HAVE to meet in-person.
     
    It’s just SO MUCH GODDAMN BULLSHIT, that these selfish bastards jumped the line…. and I SERIOUSLY hope that some forensic computer work is done, so that these dumbasses get what they deserve, for doing what they did.
     
    We’d be fired if we walked out with computers, chairs, tables, or any other tools our kids need to use to learn.
     
    These ASSHATS don’t grok that these shots ARE another goddamn form of *equipment* needed for our jobs😒😒😒😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
     
    I fucking HATE entitled asshats who think cheating ok, “because everyone else would do it, too!”🙄😒🤬

      • I dunno, but some folks are truly THE GODDAMN WORST nowadays.
         
        I expect it at the Grocery Store, because some folks just *are* entitled asshats…
         
        Like the asshat woman who was bitchin’ and grumbling all throughout my old store one day, complaining because the mask mandate, who literally yelled (like an angry tween!🙄🙄🙄), “WHAT?!? I CAN’T HEAR YOU, BECAUSE I HAVE TO HAVE THIS MASK ON!”
        😒😒😒
         
        I was SO tempted to yell back from *my* aisle, “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO COVER YOUR EARS WITH IT!” just to throw her own childishness back at her.  But I also didn’t want to deal with MizKaren’s attitude–because she was soooooooooo the type to *ask for a manager* if anyone had called out her tomfoolery. 🙄😒🙃

        • I have a doctor friend who was on Facebook pleading with people to stop pulling their masks down to talk. She also had an aside about people pulling their masks down to hear… which is just… huh?
           
          But none of it is as bad as the idiots that pull them down to COUGH OR SNEEZE 😱

    • ugh, that’s horrible, I’m sorry you are on the receiving end of that short stick of selfishness and incompetence.
      FWIW, when it’s come up with my coworkers (we have a pretty low-risk work environment, there is rarely more than a half-dozen of us, we have plenty of space and lots of ventilation, and we don’t interact with the public, and I think I’m the only one who even uses public transit…), I’ve said that jobs like grocery workers and taxi/uber/lyft drivers should have a higher priority, due to how much of the public they have to interact with.
      It’s not much help, but hoping you get your vaccination as soon as possible…

      • Thanks, Lochaber!😉😁💖
         
        I had a meltdown yesterday, tbh. I got home from work, parked in my spot and 9nce I got the car turned off, just started to cry–before I even knew about the aasholery–just because no one was able to give me any answers, as to why I was the ONLY person in my group of co-workers who hadn’t had a chance to reflgister this week (I found ONE other person–who was also high risk, and who’d emailed right away LAST week like I did… which was when I started to suspect that our emails had gotten “black-holed” somehow.
         
        It pretty much just broke me, yesterday, that all the co-workers who’ve been lackadaisical, indifferent, or blasé about precautions were the folks who got to schedule their shots, and that I’ve been the only person I know in meat-space, who’s been as anal-retentive as I’ve been about trying to be super-careful.
         
        It fucking HURT, tbh. Because it’s just tiring to know that I have to be 100% all the time, and there is literally *no* room for errors on washing my hands, masking up, and having to run in a constantly hyper-vigilant state outside the walls of our apartment.
         
        I haven’t even walked in the hall to take the garbage out, or run down to my car without a mask, since sometime last summer, when I forgot *once*🙃
         
        The radio-silence and not knowing early in the afternoon just completely broke me…
        Things got better by early evening, because the district sent out a survey to all of us who they thought fell into that aforementioned “black hole”
        And about an hour after that survey, I fiiiiinally DID end up with another email that allowed me to basically pre-register, to someday regolister, to eventually, maybe, someday, try to get in that line for a vaccination, at *some* magically point in the future…
         
        Not *much* to hold on to… but it was the tiny bit of frayed string my brain needed to be able to pretend was a lifeline, so that the damn lizard-brain part which rules over my anxiety could stop freaking out *all* day, every day, snd just go back to it’s “normal” level of simply freaking out *most* of the day, on *most* days.😉

        • Not even remotely surprised that the very same people who have been screaming about how Covid is a hoax, or just no big deal, or about their FREEDUMB are also the ones cheating like fucking crazy to skip the line so they can get vaccinated.  Now, they’ll keep running around without masks screaming I’VEBEENVACCINATEDIDON’T HAVETODOANYOFTHATSHIT.

  6. Also, I don’t want to be alarmist & freak anyone out, but if y’all CAN, go get yourselves some KN95’s NOW, don’t wait until later on.
    Eric Feigl-Ding had this thread a few days ago, in case it didn’t get shared over here;


     
    Between what Feigl-Ding, Osterholm, & Fauci have said this week, things are likely to get pretty bad.
     
    With those new more- transmissible strains, it’s sounding like a good idea to get some high-filtration masks this week or early next, because they’ll be NEEDED soon (the Brazil variant has already shown up, here in MN. Iirc, SC has the South African strain, and the British/UK one is in 26 or so states now).
     
    Masks WORK, and fabric ones got us through to now… but with the increase in transmission, we NEED to step up to better filtration.
    It can be doubling-up,where you wear a fabric mask *over* one that filters, you can do any of the recommended filtration levels, whatever YOU like best.
    Just get READY, please💖
     
    Because you guys are great people, and I don’t want any of y’all to get sick!💖💞💓
     
    Office Depot has these ones–i ordered 4 packages for myself, a couple for my mom, and I’ll be ordering another couple to have sent up to my dad’s place, too. They’re a really decent price… I can’t yet vouch for them,  but I’ll know more by Monday night.
    Here’s what Osterholm has been saying this week; it may be a really bumpy ride over the next few weeks–hopefully it won’t be, buuuuut there’s a possibility for bad stuff, y’all😕
    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/01/29/osterholm-on-covid-variants-we-need-to-understand-whats-coming
     

    • eh…if the gubment tells me too ill switch to medical masks…but tbh..im anti social enough to not be worried much
      i could just wear my work mask outside….but i’d probably just end up freaking out those prone to anxiety…lol

      its warm in there…..also causes a near uncontrollable urge to breathe heavily and tell people i am their father

    • Yeah, I was seeing numbers recently on how cloth masks are between 20-70% effective… The trouble is, not everyone making cloth masks is doing it in a good way. There are tons of cute masks out there that have poor material choices or are just a single layer. If you want to wear those doubled over a surgical mask, fine, but too many people have been relying on just that. Plus too many people have cloth masks with extremely poor fits. Meanwhile I have a multilayer thick cotton flannel mask with a filter pocket, and people in various places keep criticizing me for using a cloth mask because they assume I’m doing it stupidly like some other people are.
       
      Anyway, sorry for the rant. I pretty much don’t go anywhere anyway, but if I do need to go inside anywhere, I have surgical masks to double up my cloth masks with. I’ll leave the n95s for people who have to work in person jobs. 

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