Tag: coronavirus

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We have both gotten the first dose of the Moderna vaccine against Covid!

*whew!*

The kid can’t get vaccinated until the <16 safety and efficacy data comes back, but he’s still young enough that he’s at a lot less risk to begin with, and having all the adults around him vaccinated will let us all get a lot closer to “normal” life outside the home soon. (Whatever “normal” is these days.)

Smooth Scheduling (No, Really!)

After hearing horror stories from people in earlier tiers and different states, I was really expecting to have trouble setting up appointments. I figured it was going to be like trying to get tickets for Comic-Con. Or worse: like trying to get a hotel room for Comic-Con. Broken websites, or only finding appointments three weeks out, or only finding appointments on the other side of the county, or starting to schedule an appointment and having it disappear in the middle of registering. I bookmarked all the pharmacy Covid-19 pages ahead of time just in case the state or county websites crashed and burned.

Fortunately we were both in UCLA Health’s system, because they’re running a well-oiled machine.

The day before general eligibility opened up, just as I was starting to freak out about how long it would take to get appointments, UCLA Health sent out an email to their patients saying to just schedule an appointment through MyChart. We picked the nearest location (about half an hour away), she got an appointment for the first day, and I got one for a few days later.

We could have scheduled for the same time, but we wanted to stagger our shots just in case we both got knocked out by side effects. Gotta have at least one functional adult around!

Getting (the) Shot

The location we both went to is a regular medical office, not a megasite. They don’t have outdoor lines or giant waiting areas, and they don’t have separate entrances and exits, and the hallways are kind of squirrely. But they minimize bottlenecks and keep you moving quickly so you aren’t sharing airspace with anyone for longer than a couple of minutes.

  1. They screen everyone on the way in with the usual symptom questions and a temperature check.
  2. When someone’s ready at the front office, they send you in to check your ID, confirm whether you’re there for the first or second dose, hand you the information sheets and send you down the hallway.
  3. At each intersection, they have someone to direct you through the maze until you reach an exam room.
  4. One person is waiting for you in the exam room. They double check your name and which dose you’re there for, then give you the shot and the CDC-issued paper card indicating which vaccine you received and when it was.
  5. Then they send you down another hall where someone directs you to one of the chairs scattered throughout the halls to wait out the 15 minutes.
  6. Rather than try to keep track of everyone, they just ask you to set a 15-minute timer on your phone and you can leave if you’re still feeling OK at the end.
  7. They also ask if you have the MyChart app on your phone. If you do, you can sign in and there’s already a button to schedule your follow-up for the second dose. If not, or if you run into problems with the app, they’ll schedule it for you.

The whole process is fast. Each of us was in and out within half an hour. Including parking the car.

Side Effects

The shot itself was relatively painless, but we both developed sore arms after a couple of hours. More than a flu shot, less than a tetanus shot. Mine cleared up after two days, while Katie’s lasted a little longer. We also both experienced fatigue starting around the same time as the soreness. Hers was milder — she described it as more just wanting to be left alone than actually being tired — but I was wiped out for the evening and most of the next day.

A bit unpleasant, sure, but nowhere near as bad (or as long) as actually getting Covid-19!

With any luck the second dose will go as smoothly. Update: The process was smooth, but the side effects were stronger.

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I’ve gone through or seen four different Covid-19 testing procedures over the past year, not counting the ones I’ve only read about. (You remember, the early days of the pandemic when they were still trying to make enough tests, and weren’t sure just how easily transmissible it was, so they had people wearing haz-mat suits and passing the test kit to the patient on the end of a long pole.)

The first Covid-19 test I took was in July 2020. I was coughing and registered a fever, so I went to an urgent care. Masks and distancing were standard by then. I signed in at the door, then waited in the car until they called me on my phone. They led me into one of the exam rooms, asked me the screening questions, then handed me a nasal swab to administer it myself.

The second Covid-19 test I took, at the end of September, was in the emergency room. I was there for an unrelated health problem, but if you’ve got someone who’s going to be in the ER for a while (and let’s be honest, if you have to go to the ER, you’re going to be there for a while), you have to check. They basically just stuck the cotton swab up my nose while I was sitting on a gurney in the hallway. To be fair, I was pretty out of it by that point.

The third Covid-19 test I took was at a drive-through pharmacy window. I didn’t have any symptoms, but I’d been potentially exposed. I made an appointment ahead of time and drove up to the window. This was the kind of window with an extending drawer that they normally use to trade your payment for your medication. They passed a plastic bin out with the swab kit, instructions, and a collection vial. I did the swab myself, put it in the vial, then put the vial back in the bin to return it.

The fourth test isn’t one I took myself, but I was at an urgent care last week for another issue and got to see how they were handling it. They were screening everyone at the door to the building. If you were there for Covid-19 testing, you wouldn’t even set foot in the building. You’d wait on the sidewalk or in your car, and when they were ready, a nurse would come out and meet you with the test kit. I don’t know whether the nurses or patients were performing the nasal swab, but I thought doing it all outside (this is Southern California in spring, so YMMV) was a good way to minimize transmission.

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The other day I grabbed a coffee and muffin while out walking, and found an out-of-the-way outdoor place where I could unmask and eat without being near anyone else.

It was weird! It felt like I was getting away with something. This sort of thing used to be normal, but now it isn’t… and that’s weird too!

I haven’t eaten at a restaurant in nearly a year. Not even outside on a patio when health orders have allowed it. (Though I have bought take-out.) This was only the second time since last March that I’ve eaten anything away from home except the occasional travel mug of coffee in the car. Not that I bother with that very often, since I rarely drive farther than the grocery store. I’ve even stopped carrying my Epi-Pen everywhere. I know I’m not going to eat until I get back.

I think the last time I ate at a restaurant was when I went out to lunch with some co-workers the first week of March, and we were talking about whether we wanted to switch to working remotely early, before the order came down. We knew it was coming sooner or later.

As it turned out, all of us who were there ended up spending just one more day onsite. The other two both started working remotely the next week, and I came down with the flu that weekend (at least I think it was the flu) and didn’t recover until the office closed.

I’m still at the same job, but that office? Gone. They’re moving to a new location for when onsite office work is a thing again. I haven’t been to the new office either, because it’s not ready yet, and everything’s in storage for now, presumably including the clutter I would have taken care of if I hadn’t been sick when the work-from-home order came down.

I hope I rinsed out my coffee mug.

And didn’t leave any food at my desk.

But hey, at least I know I didn’t need all of those hand-written notes!

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Surprising no-one, WonderCon will be online-only again this year. Last year’s event was canceled just as we all started to realize that Covid-19 was spreading in California. And while the winter surge in cases is finally slowing down, the coronavirus is still more prevalent out there now than it was last March.

They’re still hoping to do San Diego in July, but even with multiple vaccines, there are still too many variables (vaccine distribution, mutation speed, mask and distancing practice, etc.) to know whether it’ll be possible to hold a convention by then. I guess we’ll see.

Well, other people will see. Much as I miss going to comic cons, SDCC feels unsafely crowded in normal years. Even in the best-case scenario, my anxiety would go through the roof.

Besides, I’ve already read The Last Stand of the California Browncoats.

No Fair(e)

Anyway, the local Renaissance Faire canceled this season again, too. On one hand, it’s all outdoors, which helps a lot — and you know the Faire folk would be serious about safety — but on the other hand, it’s still a big gathering, and April isn’t that far off.

I could maaaaybe see doing a smaller convention in fall, if things improve by then. Long Beach Comic-Con’s and LA Comic Con still show their September dates. For now. (I was worried about LBCC for a bit since their website was offline when I checked a few days ago, but it’s back now.) But again, way too many variables in the war between public health and the virus to predict whether it’ll even be possible for them to hold it. Though I’m pretty sure LBCC will be more responsible than LA Comic-Con.

Of course, even if someone can hold a convention safely by then…would it actually be fun? Or would it be a day of white-knuckled agoraphobia as we plunge into a crowd after a year and a half of semi-isolation?

Maybe we’re probably better off not trying to hit a convention until next spring anyway. We’ll need time first to re-acclimate to being around people!

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Earlier this week we were talking about cosplay ideas for when we can finally go back to comic conventions. Literally the next day, I read that LA Comic-Con is planning an in-person convention in December.

OH HELL NO!

I don’t care that they’re limiting attendance, requiring masks and distancing, and keeping it at the cavernous LA Convention Center. Knowing what we know now, December is going to be way too soon.

As much as we’ve learned about how this coronavirus spreads and attacks, and ways to mitigate both, the pandemic is not under control now. It’s not likely to be under control by December. Even if we were doing everything perfectly — and we aren’t, there are too many people in the US especially who think medical advice is for other people — there’d probably still be another wave this fall and winter.

“But what about a vaccine?” Heh. Sure. OK, a vaccine. Even if a Covid vaccine has passed through all the rushed trials by then, and actually works, it still takes time to ramp up production and distribution, and for actual doses to take effect, which means the general population is still going to be vulnerable in December, and this is a perfect super-spreader event. Assuming they don’t need to use the convention center as a field hospital again.

It’s kind of a Hail Mary anyway, since there’s no provision in the state’s reopening plan to re-allow that size of event even in the least-restricted tier based on case rates. They’re basically planning it in hopes that the rules will change by the time December rolls around.

But they’re selling tickets already. Without knowing whether they can hold the event. Which really rubs me the wrong way.

Honestly I’m not surprised that of the various LA-area cons it’s them that wants to jump the gun. They’ve always struck me as kinda snake-oily. The way they kept acting like other cons in the area didn’t exist. (What, Long Beach Comic Con? Please, they’re in Long Beach, not L.A.!) Paying Stan Lee to let them use his name back when it was Comikaze Expo. The worst was the reality show they had on SyFy back in 2013, which was at least a few years ago.

But selling tickets for a convention for winter during a pandemic when there’s no provision for actually holding a convention within public health recommendations? That might be a new low.

Update Oct. 14: The event is officially re-cancelled for the year, with some of the guests already scheduled for 2021. Tickets can optionally be refunded or saved for next year. The more I think about it, the more I think they were hoping to get at least some revenue in this year, even if it ends up being just a super-early pre-sale for next fall.