I actually was vaccinated this week!
Seriously. For MMR. Yep, measles, mumps and rubella – even though I’m over 60, the system slipped me through the cracks for decades. More on that in a moment!
For the past 3 months, we’ve been treated to an endless stream of vaccination selfies on social media, as the vaccine privileged share their eliteness.
Now the tide has turned – some fear it reveals something about their personal health status (how did they qualify?) or just shows how elite they are, and it doesn’t go over well with social media friends. Indeed, I just logged into Instagram for the first time in a month – and not one selfie vaccination photo!
Source: Can COVID-19 Vaccines Be Kept Private? – The Atlantic
I had previously guessed that by the time I am eligible for a Covid vaccine, the posting a selfie thing will be so last year!
Regarding MMR – I was verbally told by my Mom that I had measles and mumps when I was about 3 years old. Today the CDC wants written lab proof or written proof of vaccination. I expect this will be required in the era of “vaccine passports” – they will be tracking all your immunity records!
I discussed with my doctor what little I knew about my non-existent vaccination record. I remembered being vaccinated for smallpox and polio – and that was it. I apparently had measles, mumps and chicken pox as a child – but there’s no documentation for any of that.
A serology lab test confirmed I have no immunity to rubella. Therefore, following CDC guidelines it was recommended I get vaccinated with an adult MMR dose, which I did this week.
There are several vaccinations the CDC and my doctor recommend. I am looking at “catching up” with all of them over the next 9-12 months as their needs to be a time delay between each one, and Hep A/B takes 3 shots over six months.
Meanwhile, I find most of my peers got MMR vaccinations decades ago even if they had been told they had those diseases.
For unknown reasons, no one ever asked me about this until I did my own reading of CDC guidelines and then brought it up myself. Sadly, for much of my life, health care has been a Do-It-Yourself endeavor where I have to read PubMed and other resources to identify problems and solutions and then ask my doctors about it. This is not how health care ought to work.
But heck, when I fractured my skull, the doctor apparently thought I might have and made an appointment for me to be x-rayed at an outpatient radiology clinic 5 days later. It took 5 days to find that I had a 5″ long fracture in my skull… yeah, health care is great, isn’t it?
