[PLUG-TALK] Covid-19 ... [2]

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Thu Mar 4 21:38:45 UTC 2021


On Tue, Mar 02, 2021 at 02:44:11PM -0800, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> ... If I win the lottery to get the vaccine,
> I must expose myself to all the other people gathering at
> the convention center.  What's a paranoid to do?
> 
> I'll find some paranoid and devious way...

Like Nathan, I used https://vaccinefinder.org/ early 
Monday morning to find a vaccine appointment.  I searched
the entire Portland region zip-code by zip-code, found
nothing, then searched south down I-5.  I found a slot
at Health Mart Pharmacy in Salem.  

I received my first vaccination (Moderna) Wednesday
afternoon.  My wife arrived early in Salem, so we spent
a couple of hours walking in Minot-Brown Island Park.

We walked past three "very late youth" women on a bench,
properly spaced and masked.  I complemented them on their
masks and prudent behavior.  We talked; I said I was in
town for a vaccination, and one woman mentioned using
vaccinefinder to schedule a Thursday vaccination ...
in Madras, 155 miles over the mountains east of Salem.

At the time, I was glad she was so "clever and diligent".
That evening, it occured to me that /she/ might have
gotten a shot in Salem if I hadn't snagged it first. 

If I had thought this through when I spoke to her, I would
have offered my slot at Health Mart to her, and wangled
another appointment, perhaps a spare dose remaining
in the bottle at the end of the day at Health Mart.

I presume she is in Madras (or on the road) now.  Madras
is the nearest city to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation,
where COVID is rampant, so it could be argued that she is
displacing a Warm Springs resident, because I displaced her.
Sometimes, my "clever diligence" can cost many others.

----

BiMart Pharmacy will start dispensing the Johnson&Johnson
vaccine in Oregon today (Thursday), Walmart this weekend. 
The J&J vaccine is single dose, and easier to manufacture
and deploy, though its effectiveness against the newer
and more-contagious and deadly COVID variants ("UK" and
"SA" and "BR" and "SoCal") is uncertain.  However, if 
J&J slows the spread even a little, it will forstall 
the emergence of more variants.

If many more people had been vaccinated, those new
variants would not have had a chance to emerge. 
So, get vaccinated as soon as it is ethical to do so;
don't be the index case for a new variant that kills
or cripples millions.

----

And if you are a brilliant information engineer who can
figure out a clever way to contact-trace everyone while
protecting their privacy ... the world will be grateful. 
COVID is spread by incomplete or false information.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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