I wasted no time getting a second booster shot of a vaccine that blunts the worst effects of the COVID-19 disease that has killed nearly a million Americans over the past two years.
A worker jabbed me at the Will County Health Department in Joliet Tuesday, the day the Food and Drug Administration authorized a second booster shot for people 50 and older.
The facility was nearly deserted. The clinic administers free vaccines on Tuesday afternoons. People may make appointments, but walk-ins are welcome.
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I searched for my vaccine card, without success. I filled out paperwork and they gave me another one. The Will County community health center also administered my first booster in October. I received two Pfizer shots in March and April 2021 at a Walgreens in Markham.
Intuition has helped me survive the pandemic so far. I read stories about studies that showed vaccines lost their effectiveness after five or six months. I wanted a booster for protection and peace of mind. It’s tough to keep up with information about the pandemic.
Remember the early days of the pandemic in March 2020, when most people in Illinois and other states stayed home for about two weeks? I recall the eerie deserted streets and highways. It reminded me of the silence in the skies when all air traffic was grounded after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The shutdown shocked the economy and prompted Congress to spend billions of tax dollars to help businesses and workers. People lost work when businesses shut down, or they quit jobs because they felt unsafe in the workplace.
Most health authorities and public officials generally seemed to do their best to make decisions with information available at the time. They tried to save lives by adapting to changing conditions, just as the insidious virus mutated and evolved as it killed millions around the world.
Many struggled to make sense of policies that required masks or limited the number of people who could gather at any given time inside a restaurant, church or other space. People argued and fought, hurled insults and cast blame.
Children missed socializing when they had to be schooled at home for the entire 2020-2021 school year. Many parents complained about lost opportunities. Others learned to appreciate what they still had.
When vaccines first became available in spring 2021, many thought the pandemic would end soon. People enjoyed the outdoors that summer. There was a sense that the worst was over. But the delta and omicron variants had other plans.
Another wave exacted a cruel toll just a few weeks ago in January. Some feared we relaxed masking and social distancing restrictions too soon. Now there is concern about a new variant known as BA.2.
Some may willfully ignore the dangers of COVID-19, but others may be forgetting to keep up with developments because other important matters demand their attention. The war in Ukraine, revelations about the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and other stories push the pandemic from the top of the news.
So it’s no surprise that facilities like the Will County Health Department’s Joliet clinic have reduced vaccination opportunities to just one afternoon per week. Those who want to get a second booster shot can be grateful the opportunity exists at all.
I spent a moment after my booster shot this week reflecting on the past two years. Days may have slow to a crawl at times due to boredom but the years seem to have passed in a blur. Has it really been two years? I thought about people who have died and others who are impacted by long-term effects of the disease.
We may think we really have it bad, that we face hardships like no other generation. This is a normal reaction to short-term losses. We feel bad for ourselves because we can’t do some things or go some places we used to before the pandemic.
The pandemic has caused a lot of misery. The best you can do is carry on and hope the situation improves.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going,” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said during World War II.
We keep going because sometimes, that’s all you can do.
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.