Not A Cure...

 

I recall seeing a 4-wheel drive truck spinning it's tires on glare ice, back when I was in high school.  This truck was raised several inches, had big tires on it and a powerful engine that roared as the tires did very little to move the truck forward.  I shook my head as we passed by it in our 2-wheel drive sedan.  How were we able to progress, while this monster truck was virtually helpless?  I think it was the false sense of security that the driver of the truck had.  Here he had this truck that towered over everything else on the road, so when it came to ripping through ice and snow, he felt that he was second to none.  That nothing would stop him, yet a small sheet of ice rendered him helpless.

I often reflect on that motorist whenever I think of something or someone as having a false sense of security.  As the vaccines begin to siphon out and get distributed across the country and soon, the world, I'm thinking that those who get inoculated, there'll be a false sense of invincibility that follows.  

The definition of a vaccine is that it is essentially preventative.  That the drug that is administered will contain a weakened virus that will help the body's immune system to produce antibodies that will help stave off impending sickness, but it won't eliminate completely.  My guess or prediction, rather, is people will receive the vaccination then continue their lives as they once did, prior to the global shutdown due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.  Such behavior would be premature and I would imagine many more people would become infected as a result.

This blog has evolved much since I was first inspired (many weeks ago) by this subject.  Discussion in the beginning involved WHO would receive said vaccine.  I couldn't believe that was even a question.  There should be one logical line of treatment that follows upon the opening of that first box of vaccines.

1. Frontline caregivers; doctors, nurses, pharmacists, care home providers, etc.
2. Patients in hospitals, care homes, those most at risk.
3. Police, ambulance and firefighters.
4. Funnel down from there; High density populations, then down from there.

Latest news concerning the Covid-19 vaccine, lists side-effects and a warning to those with severe allergies.  Side effects include symptoms of Covid, so I'd imagine those who receive inoculation, may be required to quarantine for two weeks, which is a little ironic.  My research has presented that many of the side effects resemble that of getting the Coronavirus, which is expected, but leaves me scratching my head in confusion, anyway.

As for me...  I often joked throughout the year that if the shit that I've dealt with and handled in my job hadn't killed me, then Covid would have no effect.  That aside and given my severe allergies, it doesn't look like I'll be getting an inoculation any time soon, anyway.  I've never been one for getting the flu shot, so why risk getting sick (or worse) from getting the Covid-19 vaccination?

I've got a shit-ton of very stylish face masks and I don't mind wearing them.  This is just a calm before another storm.  People will get inoculated then carry on as they once did.  They'll either get sick or get others sick and we'll be in the same boat as we've been in 2020.

The vaccine is NOT a cure.  No one will get cured of the Corornavirus.  It's all preventative, so care will still be required.  We all gotta be smart, here.  As for the morons who are non-believers, we smart people are going to have to be smart for those idiots, too.

Bad Aftertaste

Nobody likes being sick.  Unless you're a kid, staying home from school and missing the big algebra exam, it's just about one of the most trying times of a human\s existence.  Between the sniffling, running nose and irritating blinding coughs, it's truly quite a bothersome ordeal.  My personal Hell is the coughing.  There are times that I get on a stria that is difficult to decipher whether it's a string of individual coughs strung together or simply one hellaceous cough.  Either way, the end result is the same.  I begin to get light-headed, accompanied by a severe headache that borders on a migraine level.  Getting sick completely sucks.  The only positive that comes from it, is the constant coughing is a good workout for the abdominal region.  I've had bouts of influenza and pneumonia where it felt like I'd just completed about a thousand and two sit-ups.

One memory that I have of being sick, is re-instilled every time I see a commercial for Buckley's Cough Syrup.  Several years ago, I was invited to accompany a friend to his parents house in another city.  It was an overnight excursion and as luck would have it, I became very under the weather.  I was quite ill, with all the fixin's that accompany such an ailment.  Runny red nose and a heavy cough from Hell.  My friend assured me that he had "just what the doctor ordered" by way of combating the illness that was striking me down.  Buckley's Cough Syrup.

I've never been a fan of cough remedies of any sort.  They'd always tasted horrendous.  Even the cough syrup that was administered to us kids, growing up, which was aimed at tasting "good", tasted quite bad.  So I was reluctant to try this remedy when my friend offered it to me.  However, in a show of solidarity, he opted to take some, too.  So I reluctantly agreed.

The directions for an adult dosage called for two tablespoons.  "The trick is," D_____ explained, "Don't swallow the first tablespoon."  He informed me that I was to take the first tablespoon and leave it in my mouth until I took the second tablespoon.  "Because," he went on to explain, "It tastes SO bad, that it's unlikely you'll take the second tablespoon."

He was correct.  The taste of Buckley's Cough Syrup is SO unbelievably bad that there was no freakin' way that I would have committed to taking a second administering of that awful concoction.  On the bright side, though, just as the slogan promises, it DOES work.  Overnight, my cough had pretty much disappeared entirely.

It tastes awful and it works.

In the years since then, I've battled many bouts of sickness, knowing full well the benefits of Buckley's Cough Syrup, yet I've never made any effort to add it to my non-existent arsenal of cold remedies.  Part of me is chicken shit.  A frightened child wrapped in the body of a grown male, afraid of two tablespoons of awful tasting medicine.  It's pathetic, really, when you think about it.  In the meantime, I still have that simple memory which I reflect on a few times a day, when I see that commercial, and it never fails to make me smile.