A Vaccination and A New Car

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I haven’t written about the Pandemic in many weeks, because not much has changed. We’re in it for the long haul. Until the vaccine I believed and hoped that governments would attempt to get to zero new community transmissions as had been the goal in New Zealand. With the arrival of the vaccine that hope faded. Now it was just a matter of waiting for many months for enough vaccines to be produced to vaccinate us all.

I have no hope of normal life returning before the Spring or Summer of 2022, because with the arrival of the vaccine, governments had even less pressure to get the community transmission rate to zero. I went from hoping that the pandemic would end within two months of whatever day it was, to knowing that it would be another year. The vaccine, rather than fill me with hope, emptied me of enthusiasm.

As soon as I was able to sign up to be vaccinated and within two weeks of signing up I got my first vaccine. I also got a new car on the same day. Driving a new car on the same day as you are vaccinated is not ideal. You need to get used to the new car, and you’re not one hundred percent, due to the vaccine and your immune system being more active than usual.

Aside from being a little tired, having some redness, and having a very weak headache I did not suffer. In around two weeks I will get the next shot and then I will be done with vaccinations until the third dose, at some point in the next six months.

I went from driving an old diesel car with a pollution category rating of C in Geneva, to one with a pollution rating of A. It’s smaller and more environmentally friendly than the old car.

I wanted to replace the old car with a car that I could sleep in, if the drive to my next adventure was long, but with that type of car being just outside my budget I chose to go for a smaller car instead. The advantage of small cars is that they’re easier to drive, to park, and they’re cheaper to run.

Due to us being in a pandemic, and people not being as cautious as they could be I have hardly used the car. I go to the shops and that’s it. I would do more, but if you go to non essential shops people stand too close, and if you hike on narrow paths people walk too close.

I consider that this summer is another lost summer, the fourth in a row, and I’m thinking of 2022. I’m also afraid that after the last four summers I will not be able to revert to old habits of doing things with groups. No car one year, a broken arm the second, and two summers wasted due to a pandemic. The pandemic was weeks away from being over in June last year, when I stopped writing about it. That’s why I stopped writing about it.

Now we’re still in the pandemic, and the only way out is for humanity to be vaccinated.