I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on television (possibly because I have a face best suited for radio). I don't pretend to be an Internet Epidemiologist or a Virologist like (m)any of the myriad of same we've all encountered on social media platforms on a non-stop basis over the last couple of months as our country and the world has battled sometimes fiercely and at other times just fitfully in attempting to contain and conquer the most terrifying (to me) health threat in my almost-seven decades here on the Big Blue Marble, COVID-19.
I've spent most of my adult life never allowing my lack of knowledge on any given subject to keep me from having an opinion about it (just like you, in case you were feeling superior; you're not. We're all bozos on this bus and sometimes some of us have a window seat and sometimes we don't) so why would COVID-19 be any different for me? It's not.
About a month and a half ago, in a post called Vacci-Nation, I offered a peek at my earliest years on Earth while recounting barely-remembered early childhood memories from when I was (maybe) three years old at a time it was just me and my Mom and Dad in a high-rise in Flushing, Queens (New York City). I had some interesting emails in response.
Post World War II grown-ups were having children, us, who were to be the vanguard of the Baby Boom, as the United States became not just a but the world power and the political, social, and economic powerhouse of the world. And yet even as my parents and their friends were fruitful and multiplied, infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) was reaching epidemic levels, killing thousands of kids in this country every year and untold numbers around the world.
Dr. Jonas Salk had developed what proved to be the first effective vaccine against polio but when it was being tested no one, Salk included, 'knew' that it would work. I was still a toddler when my mom and dad had an opportunity for me to receive Salk's polio immunization in its earliest days. I remember Mom telling me as an adult she never hesitated about a decision.
Polio was the most frightening disease you have probably never heard of, and Salk's vaccine is the reason why. The vaccine was released just before my third birthday in 1955 and cases of polio disappeared dramatically until, by 1995, it had been basically eliminated in the Western Hemisphere. I received a vaccination; a child one apartment over didn't because her parents were afraid of the unknown consequences. She contracted polio. Normally this might be where I'd suggest 'thus endeth the lesson.'
Except, on the last Friday of last month, my wife and I received the second of the two Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations and gave not a moment's thought to all, or any, of the discussions and distractions, swirling around from those who not only know everything about vaccines but everything better, so it's okay to think of me as one of those folks when I tell you to trust the science, keep wearing your mask, practice social distancing and wash your hands.
-bill kenny
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