Month: March 2021

I just received the second shot of the Pfizer vaccine.  The pandemic did not magically end with a snap of a finger.  I used hand sanitizer on my way out.  I still kept my mask on.  The virus marches on.  The decline in cases recorded in the winter is reversing itself.  The more dangerous variants are becoming dominant.  And, yet…

Biden’s goal of delivering 100 million doses in his first 100 days was met a month and half early.  The new goal is to deliver 200 million and we are on pace to exceed that.  As of yesterday, over 15% of American adults have been fully vaccinated.  At the beginning of this year, only half a million doses of vaccine were being administered.  Today, we are at six times that level.  In fact, the concern in the United States is not a shortage of vaccines by the end of spring, but a surplus.  

In chess, the end of the match is marked by a checkmate.  We aren’t there.  The virus still has many places to go.  But maybe we are in the endgame, the part of the match when victory is assured, even if it is many moves away.  We have the right pieces in the right positions now.  Maybe our return to each other is not that far away.  

March 14th marks at least two grim anniversaries.  It was a year ago today that New York City recorded its first death due to covid-19 and within two weeks almost 700 more New Yorkers would be dead from the novel coronavirus.  March 14th also happens to be the first day I experienced my first symptoms of the illness.  A year later, the pandemic still rages.  Rates of infection and death are, however, dropping dramatically (though they still exceed last summer’s peaks).  March 14 also happens to mark another anniversary: it was exactly three months ago, on December 14, that the vaccine was given to the US public.  Could we finally be seeing the end of all this?

A little over a week ago I found out from my doctor that I was eligible for the vaccine (let’s just say I enjoy the benefits of a high sodium diet).  I found an available slot early Sunday morning on turbovax.info (the benefit of staying up late and surfing the web) and signed up.  The appointment was for Monday, March 8.

The first side effect I experienced after getting the shot was hope.  I received the shot at The Harlem Hospital.  The operation was efficient.  I arrived early for my appointment but I hardly had to wait.  They had my name and information, they set the appointment for the second shot and then I received the actual first shot.  They make you wait 15 minutes to see if the shot has any adverse effects, but it didn’t for me.  I left after fifteen minutes and got on the subway home.

The trains are more crowded nowadays.  Not like they were before the pandemic, but certainly more than in the darkest days.  I actually had to stand up.  I wanted to shout to all of the people on the train to get off, sign up and get the vaccine, ridiculous as it sounds.

For all the disaster and tragedy of the last year, this is an incredible time.  The SARS-COV-2 virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December of 2019.  BioNTech started working on a vaccine on January 10, 2020, the same day that China released the gene sequence of the virus.  In February came the first known death of an American from SARS-COV-2. The WHO declared covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020.  Less than a year after the discovery of the virus, the first members of the American public received doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  Less than a year after covid-19 was declared a pandemic, I received my own first shot of the vaccine. We are admittedly still some distance in time from having to forego all precautions. 

It is not quite time yet to throw all our masks away nor to end that six foot restriction in public places.  But that time is coming sooner rather than later.  The pace of recovery is accelerating.  I can testify to it.  And I can feel it.

It was a year ago that lockdown began.  I started working from home on March 9th of last year.  For all that has happened in the last year, it has felt at times that time has been at a stand still.  I’ve heard talk of hitting The Pandemic Wall, before which lie our fears and anxieties, and beyond which lies our freedom.  So many people I’ve spoken to are the base of the wall now.
 
It’s hard for everyone.  Circumstances vary widely.  Some of us have lost employment, some have lost health, and far too many have lost lives.  
But all of us have lost a very basic need: connection.  We are not meant to be isolated from each other.  We are not meant to spend our days talking to two dimensional ghosts on flat screen.  God and evolution designed us to be with each other.

So what do we do now?  We are still months away from seeing each other. We do the only thing we can do: hope.  The darkness of winter is always followed by the brightness of spring.  The pandemic will be gone someday.  The cold distance between us will soon be breached by the warmth of proximity.

We will be together again soon.