Paul's Internet Landfill/ 2021/ Waiting to Be Shot

Waiting to Be Shot

Welp, it looks as if I was incorrect. In the astounding whirlwind of stressful announcements this week, the government lowered the eligibility cutoff for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to 40. That means I could potentially be vaccinated well before August, and (as usual) my feelings are churning.

My COVID anxieties have been flaring up again, and over the past two days I have (once again) convinced myself I am sick. If I could trust my body then I would have had COVID ten or twelve times by now, but of course my body lies to me and I cannot trust what it is telling me at all. In turn, that means when I get COVID I am probably going to shrug off the symptoms and then infect all of Ontario. I am moderately anxious about having COVID, but much more worried about infecting others, and even more worried about being blamed for having COVID because of my reckless lifestyle (as always, I worry more about being caught than of committing the crime). Being vaccinated would not eliminate my anxieties -- the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine's efficacy is only around 75% -- but it would help a lot.

On the other hand, it is completely ridiculous that I should qualify for vaccination ahead of frontline service workers. Many of them are young, and most of them work for minimum wage, and all of them are far more at risk of contracting COVID than I am because they are indoors with other people a lot more. Even when I was working I was working from home, and although I make risky lifestyle decisions I am still at far less risk for contracting COVID than people who work with the public. So me getting vaccinated quickly seems deeply unjust.

The only possible justification for me getting vaccinated early is that I may have to travel to Toronto this year, and it would be nice to be vaccinated before then. That still does not justify me rushing to the front of the line.

I expect that all the pharmacies offering AstraZeneca shots will be swamped for at least a week or two. I am not sure whether I should get on a waiting list now, or whether I should wait. If I had some reason to believe that others (even others over age 40) who need the vaccine more than I do were getting a fair chance of getting an appointment, then I would feel less conflicted. As it stands, I think I ought to wait, but I am not sure I will.