Boosted

It's hard to see it against the trees, but there's a sculpture on top of that column in the photo above. It's located on a housing estate near where I work, and I've blogged it a couple of times in the spring, when it's surrounded by daffodils. But it also looks pretty nice in the autumn, doesn't it?

Coincidentally, when I last mentioned that sculpture, I'd just had my first Covid-19 jab. Well, yesterday I got my booster. I went to the vaccination center at the appointed time and found the place positively thronged with people. I guess that's a good thing, because lots of people are getting the shot. But clearly the appointment times were merely a loose guideline. I chatted with the woman in line in front of me and when she wrote her birthdate on her sign-in sheet it was in 1992. I wondered how she, a mere spring chicken, and I, an old-ish codger, are in the same vaccine priority group? But of course I know nothing about her medical history. Or maybe priority groups are not a thing.

Anyway, I was ushered into a little room and jabbed so quickly that I didn't even feel it. "Are you sure it went in?" I joked to the nurse. He assured me it did, and sure enough, last night my arm was a bit sore so I guess it must have.

So far I've had no other side effects, knock on wood. I got the Pfizer booster, and my original vaccines were Astra-Zeneca, so I'm now one of these people walking around with different brands of antibodies. Supposedly this is a good thing.

Speaking of vaccines, have you heard about the Newsmax White House correspondent who Tweeted out some nonsense about the ingredients of the vaccines and how they are basically the beginning of The End, according to the Book of Revelation? She insists there's a compound in them called "luciferase," and of course that name had her immediately conjuring the red guy with horns. She says it's all part of a government scheme to track us and blah blah blah. Even Newsmax says she's run off the rails -- and that's saying something. Her theories are posted here, and they're amusing as hell. (No pun intended.)

You know, I was thinking this morning that all this medical denialism is really nothing new. There are always lay people who question the science or insist on "alternative treatments" for almost any disease. Back in the '90s, for example, there was a whole movement of people who believed HIV didn't cause AIDS, and that life-saving protease inhibiting drugs were actually what made people sick. I knew some people who were part of that movement. They insisted that the medicines were a conspiracy by Big Pharma and that somehow they knew better. And of course, many if not all of them are dead now.

It's interesting how some people have a visceral certainty that they know better than all the highly educated experts. And when you add religion to the mix, well, things get even more complicated. Religion, after all, is all about belief, regardless of physical evidence or lack thereof.

I saw this display on my way to work, propped up in a shop window. I can't help thinking this is why the planet is burdened with waste -- because there are factories churning out crazy stuff like this! They are kind of cute, though.