Vaccination is a boring experience. That’s exactly why it was refreshing when I got mine. I remember driving in the rain to the University of Dayton arena, where the vaccine was being given out to UD students. The entire time I expected something to go wrong. It could have been anything: My car exploding, testing positive for COVID before getting the vaccine, or somebody dying. But when it was all said and done, the most interesting thing to happen that day was getting rained on. That sucked but when you live in Ohio that’s the first thing you get used to.
Honestly, it was kind of nice. Everybody can agree, this past year had been eventful in the U.S. with the pandemic shutting down our old way of life for a year. Many people lost their jobs, their homes, and even their lives due to COVID 19’s influence. With over 578,00 dead and over 32,000,000 infected with COVID 19 in the US according to worldmetrics.info, along with a rise in Asian hate crimes across the country, disaster isn’t a word large enough to cover the scope of what has happened in 2020-2021.
So, it felt nice to enjoy something this boring.
The Johnson and Johson shot, unlike the Pfizer, was something you only have to take once. While the other vaccines worked through mRNA technology, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine worked by injecting a harmless version of the virus into the body.
The Johnson and Johnson one, while less effective overall, is more durable and easier to produce, making the trip from the lab into my arm far simpler.
I waited in line, got the Johnson and Johnson shot, waited a little bit more, and got the postcard aka the vaccine passport and waited for the side effects to start kicking in.
An article from Business Insider already showed that side effects from the Johnson and Johnson were far less than those from the other vaccines. But I was still surprised by how little they affected me. The side effects for me weren’t terrible, I just felt some fatigue and some soreness in my arm. My roommate got the worst of it with the flu-like side effects. I heard him coughing and hacking throughout the night.
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Of course, the interesting part came after I got the vaccine. The news broke that there may have been some issues with the vaccine itself. I found out through an email the UD sent me, saying they were canceling vaccine distribution. It turned out that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine caused several recipients to have blood clots. Blood clots have the potential to do serious damage to internal organs, including your heart. This risk caused the CDC to pull back the vaccine and investigate its safeness for the general public.
This controversy continues to be talked about on social media websites like Twitter, with many people deciding not to get the Johnson vaccine, even if there is nothing wrong with it.
When I’m out and someone says they got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. pic.twitter.com/Bke0kwhlNt
— Master Sergeant Munch (@PrescottTheDo) April 9, 2021
https://twitter.com/GuinnChastity/status/1380076319887650818
https://twitter.com/JakeeMcGrady/status/1381937775201685510
My roommate and I were past the danger zone, thankfully. Yet, my memory of getting that vaccine was no longer an uninteresting event. Instead, I think of the people who got vaccinated at the arena and the people who got the blood clots. I think of what might have happened if I had gotten a blood clot.
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But for a few days, I was happily bored.
Stay safe folks.
