Health and Sanity category archive

Here at the farm, we got our first doses of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday; we are scheduled to get our second doses in three weeks after scheduling our appointments as instructed via email from the CDC.

Neither of us has suffered any serious after effects. I had more discomfort after receiving the shingles vaccine (also two shots) a while ago. (My grandmother had a bout with shingles; the vaccine is well worth a couple of days of a soreness in one arm.)

The level of organization at the Virginia Beach Convention Center was impressive and the staff, many of whom were volunteers, was courteous and helpful. I was in and out in half an hour, including the 15-minute post-injection waiting period as a precaution against adverse reactions.

David explains why Trump deserves no credit for coranavirus vaccines or vaccinations, despite the right-wing caterwauling that, for some fool reason completely disconnected from reality, he does (Warning: Short commercial at about the ten-minute mark).

The AP reports that a high percentage of prison staff are declining to take coranavirus vaccines, even though prisons are among the hottest of hot spots for infection and death. Here’s a bit of the article.

The refusal of prison workers to take the vaccine threatens to undermine efforts to control the pandemic both inside and outside of prisons, according to public health experts. Prisons are coronavirus hot spots, so when staff move between the prisons and their home communities after work, they create a pathway for the virus to spread. More than 388,000 incarcerated people and 105,000 staff members have contracted the coronavirus over the last year. In states like Michigan, Kansas and Arizona, that’s meant 1 in 3 staff members have been infected. In Maine, the state with the lowest infection rate, 1 in 20 staff members tested positive for COVID-19. Nationwide, those infections proved fatal for 2,474 prisoners and at least 193 staff members.

We are a society of stupid.

El Jefe at Juanita Jean’s.

From the description:

Jonathan Berman, professor, National Co-Chair of the 2017 March for Science, and author of “Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement,” joins David to discuss the origins of vaccine skepticism, how to deprogram anti-vaxxers, and much more.

F. T. Rea has had enough.

Sam and his crew report on the little girl who’s selling lemonade to pay for an operation and what it and the news coverage of it tell us about the American health care industrial complex.