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.

Obsolescence

I learned a new word today at work.  A variation of the word obsolete.  I never thought that work, of all places, is where I would learn something like this, but alas.  I've been schooled.

A line of machinery had been discontinued and as such the parts for that implement are no longer of any value, except (likely) what can be collected via scrap.  A HUGE waste of money, overall, if you ask me.  I mean, why produce an excess of the parts needed for the production of the original line?  Needless to say, there be a f*ck load of shit that needs to be scrapped over the coming weeks.

However, I digress.  Complaining about the stupidity of the higher ups is not my intent for this little blog, today.  To report on the idiocy of the bureaucrats at work would be about as informative as announcing: Water is wet!  No kidding?  Thank you Capt. Obvious!

Obsolescence be thy word.  All day long, I saw it posted on a couple of crates, collected to begin heaping hoards of obsolete parts into for recycling and otherwise.  The word seems so simple, yet complex at the same time.  The more that I repeated the word over in my head, the more the word made me smile and chuckle to myself.  For the word, in and of itself, does not sound like what it actually means.   

The word obsolescence, to me, sounds instead like a virus.  A disease you'd get as a result of eating too much red meat.  I thought tomato-based products at first, as this always makes me race for the bathroom, but red meat can be all the more destructive, if allowed.

"Oh boy!  I shouldn't have gone to Rodney's barbecue and ate all the rare beef.  Now I have a scorching case of Obsolescence.  I can't stray more than a few feet from the toilet before racing back to evacuate my bowels."

Yes.  That's right!  To me, obsolescence sounds like a viral infection that causes you to shit streams of gooey ungodliness.  The kind of unruly turmoil that results in using over half of a roll of ultra-soft toilet paper in hopes of soothing a burning aching backside.  Definitely a double-flusher.

Obsolescence...