After over eight months basically confined to my apartment, I was excited to hear the promising news about the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and now the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is showing promise, as well. For those of us who have, for all intents and purposes, become prisoners in our own homes, (I did the math and it turns out that I spend an average of 98% of every week staring at my own four walls and sometimes out the window) it is difficult to temper our expectations of what this could mean.
Now, I am a big believer in vaccines, and not just because certain people go a little nuts if I don’t get vaccinated every year. I always get a flu shot because the years I didn’t I got sick every October, like clockwork. I am planning on getting the HPV vaccine now that it’s been approved for people up to 45 years old (based on discussions with my doctors). And I wish there had been a meningitis vaccine when I was little. It would have saved me a lot of heartache.
What I am not is a big believer in being a guinea pig. I have five comorbidities for COVID-19 – diabetes, kidney disease, hypertension, asthma, and I qualify as obese. I really want these vaccines to succeed because I would like to feel safe spending more than three hours a week outside my building. However, while I know they are including people with chronic conditions in the trials, I suspect that they are not testing people with the complex sets of chronic conditions so many of us have. I have not been able to find any information on the results of the trials that relate to anyone with chronic conditions, let alone the ones they have listed as high risk factors. I have even sent inquiries to the “experts” who have been discussing the trials on the news. Crickets.
Unfortunately, I suspect that isn’t going to change. The rush to get the vaccine(s) distributed, and I trust that the incoming administration will follow safety protocols, will dominate, subverting the need to distribute more than the most basic of study results. The situation is so completely disruptive that the people inclined to be vaccinated will jump at the opportunity to normalize the parts of their lives that they can as soon as they can. Most won’t be looking for the extra information.
That leaves faithless me with a dilemma. When my turn comes, do I wait to see some longer-term results and stay in my safe but depressing bubble? Or do I take a leap of faith based on nothing concrete (unless my doctors have managed to lay their hands on some of the details)? The truth is that the thought of continued isolation is so repulsive that it will almost certainly override my usual level of risk aversion. That does not make me happy. But it doesn’t make me sad, either.
Author’s note: I am writing this just before Thanksgiving, it bears saying that even as I have the privilege of making this decision, whichever way I go, it’s a good time to give thanks for all of those who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get us here. Battered and bruised, but still here. From the healthcare workers who have given so much of themselves to save lives to those who have worked with unprecedented speed and diligence to allow a pinpoint of light that might lead to the end of the tunnel. Thank you.