The COVID-19 vaccine is bad for me.
My ears are ringing from high blood pressure, and my breathing is obstructed. But these are not side effects. We know that the vaccines are safe and effective.
This is frustration – and some vertigo.
I have such a high risk as virtually anyone, but not yet – at least as far as I can clearly see – allowed another shot. At least not in Alabama, where about half a million people had it before me.
It feels virtually guaranteed that a case of COVID-19 would kill me. I am middle-aged – in my 50s – but I was diagnosed with genetic emphysema in my late 30s. A missing chemical component called Alpha-1 antitrypsin enabled my immune system to gradually destroy my elasticity. My breathing ability is less than a fifth of what it should be for someone my age.
Within a few years of an active life – commuting by bike, walking and running with my dog - I passed to my breath. This is why I stopped working in the smoke and heat of restaurant kitchens and strived for writing.
This is also the reason why I sleep and exercise with a stream of oxygen flowing in my nose – why even a cold or hay fever causes bronchitis, then pneumonia. This has led to more than half a dozen hospitalizations over the past 16 years.
My first hospital stay cost $ 8,000 for four days because I did not have a pharmaceutical dose. I have since qualified for disability and the accompanying Medicare coverage; otherwise I would have no insurance at all, or access to the nearly $ 250,000 of medicine I need to stay alive every year.
When a ‘strange new pneumonia’ ‘arose a year ago, it naturally caught my attention. By March 2020, COVID-19 had washed out across the United States and my doctors told me to quarantine at home and take all safety precautions.
Vaccine breakthroughs came incredibly quickly, and Alabama’s gradual implementation began in December and only went home to frontline workers and residents of the group. Understandable and fair.
Last month, some facilities moved to Phase 1b – those over the age of 75, essential workers dealing with the public. Interested parties are directed to websites or telephone numbers for registration.
Around this time, a social media parade took place when younger, healthier faces announced their vaccinations. Every other day my wife would cook.
“How did they get it? Why do not you get it? She shouted.
We’ve discovered that some lawyers are eligible – or at least we’ve heard they get shot. There are 18,000 members of the Alabama Bar, two-thirds of men, about 90 percent white. Librarians, publicists, City Hall staff, and others were also vaccinated.
As for me, some sites did not have a specific list of media staff (my profession) or existing admission requirements. I registered anyway, but never heard from again.
Rumors have been circulating about facilities being opened from time to time for first-come-first-served and no restrictions. I never received notice.
Conditions intensified. The website of one clinic has been closed. Another one announced critical shortages. A phone number for another only gave a message “outside vaccine”.
This bad scenario ruled the state. Like the Wall Street Journal Recently reported, we were last vaccinated in the country, with only 10,013 per 100,000 inhabitants. Although we have had one of the highest rates for positive coronavirus tests by 29 percent in recent weeks, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The causes are obvious: Alabama is largely poor, rural and unhealthy. When the state rejected Medicaid expansion for Obamacare, he stressed an overburdened public health system that was making access to rural health care disappear. In February 2020, a quarter of Alabama hospitals closed the danger.
Latent paranoia caused by historical racism and horrific experimentation on black populations makes some here understandable – if unfortunate – craving for vaccinations. Black people make up 27 percent of the Alabama population – the poorest rural provinces of the state are majority black – but only 11 percent of those vaccinated are black, according to a recent estimate.
The broader politicization of COVID-19 and paranoid beliefs also play a role. That’s why only a quarter of Mobile, Alabama’s police force was vaccinated earlier this month. Add to this the confusing communication I have encountered, and the results become inevitable.
Some police officers worked out Mobile’s massive Mardi Gras street party last Tuesday, a possible superspreader event chaired by Mayor Sandy Stimpson, after lawmakers passed a bill protecting businesses and governments from COVID-19 lawsuits . The thousands of attendees would be dampened by cold temperatures and warnings from public health officials. It can be a savior.
State Health Officer, dr. Scott Harris, admitted that the vaccine supply is low, and it is a headache when combined with the above factors. He said the Biden government had struggled, but that was not enough.
“We are not in a healthy condition to begin with. “We have a lot of diabetes and heart disease and other things that people predict for bad health problems,” Harris told reporters recently. ‘The addition of the category of chronic diseases could add two million people to the list. It is not helpful to say that every person is eligible immediately if there is no vaccine to give it. “
Despite Harris’ statement, mixed signals are still on the street. A restaurant worker told me that he arrived at Mobile’s largest clinic on February 13 and without being asked for an identity card or anything, he got a shot. His diabetic wife also got the needle, he said.
Walmart announced its distribution of vaccines earlier this month. On his website, I call myself an essential worker – as a media staffer – rather than a high-risk individual. Ironically, if I carry portable oxygen, my wife can live together as a ‘high-risk individual’, although it appears that the high-risk patient will still be in a later vaccine group.
I do not know the source of all these gaps in the protocol, between the official schedules and what is happening there. We’re tired of worrying about it. We tried to play strictly according to the rules, but we are tired of playing with my life.
Three days before our scheduled vaccination appointments, I woke up with my very first vertigo. The disturbance of the inner ear caused me to have enough to prevent my vaccination, as it would be impossible to distinguish vertigo from possible side effects of vaccination.
A visit to a medical specialist takes precedence over the vaccination – if I assume I could get it at all. The week until then will be full of questions about COVID-19’s local distribution. Was Mardi Gras enough to fill the specialist’s office with the deadly virus? Will I roll into the waiting room just to get relief?
The only certainty is that if I get relief from the vertigo specialist that day, we’re going straight to Mobile’s largest vaccination clinic, where stories of ignored priorities, appointments, and protocols still appear.
Our patience and choices are exhausted, and I need the chance.