Mgoing to the US with two young children during a pandemic was an achievement I would never have thought possible. My husband got a coveted fellowship with the Mayo Clinic, an opportunity to pass up. It took months of mental anguish and preparation in the face of Covid-19 to take a journey of a lifetime, across the ocean to a new land and to establish a new life, far away from home .
It was a challenge to live in a country where Covid raged like wildfire. Our children have become accustomed to putting ‘alcohol’ on their hands as we go to groceries and masks have become a way of daily life.
Recently I decided to send my oldest to school. The whole class, including his teacher, wears a mask. It was a decision I struggled with for a long time and weighed the risks against the benefits. However, when his eyes lit up when he first entered the classroom a few weeks ago and he excitedly jumped home to tell me about his day, I knew I had made the right decision.
Covid-19 has changed our lives in more ways than one.
I do not want to live in fear, but look every day almost religiously at the statistics on matters in the hope that the numbers will drop. Although restaurants and gyms are open and life has returned to normal, it is hard for me to trust that the person sitting next to me in a restaurant does not have Covid-19.
We spend most of our days indoors, except for walks if the weather allows it, while enjoying the snow on our faces. Yet I am hopeful that this semi-lockdown life will not be forever.
I have learned to accept that social distance is a way of life for us. This is in stark contrast to the strict but essential closure measures applied in Australia every time a group emerges. Here life seems to go on and Covid-19 is always there in the background.
The Covid-19 vaccine gives me some hope. I can not wait to stand up for my lap. When my husband received his first dose of Pfizer vaccine, I cried tears of relief, then jumped up and down with joy and danced with my children.
I feel relieved that my husband now has a 95% chance of not developing symptoms after his second dose. I know there is still a risk and that we must continue to distance ourselves socially, wear a mask and that it will be a long time before we can go outside without masks. Yet one day it offers me hope for that possibility.
Like so many of my American friends here, I wish the vaccination of the vaccine was faster. Like my husband, I want to be vaccinated too.
The rollout was limited by a number of factors, including the large-scale transport and distribution of the vaccine. Distribution is largely limited to hospitals and local health departments, and individual states appear to outline when and where you have access to the vaccine.
Vaccines have just been distributed to pharmacies. I recently made an appointment with a primary care physician to discuss when and if I would get access to the vaccine, but was told that primary care clinics are not administering it yet.
It certainly looks like the administration of Biden is rolling it out as fast as humanly possible, with nearly 1.5 million shots a day. With a population of over 330 million, it will be many more months before the US reaches some form of herd immunity.
As a pediatrician, I know all too well about the importance of vaccines, and I will definitely be first in line if it’s my turn to roll up my sleeves. I know that the vaccines offered by Pfizer and Moderna here in the US have been approved by a strict process of food and drug administration approval, and I trust the process.
As I watch my fellow Melburnians plunge into another lock, I feel their pain.
Do we have to vaccinate international arrivals at the airport to stop the spread? How fast can we spread this vaccine?
Australia should consider setting up mass vaccination at sports arenas early to give people more immediate access to the vaccine. The administration of the vaccine should be limited not only to nurses and doctors, but also to pharmacists, medical students and other health care students as well as the military. A level system is important, but we need to get this vaccine from as many Australians as possible as soon as possible. Do we have a centralized SMS service so people know when and where to get vaccinated? Let us step in to make sure no bottles are spilled?
Society relies on all or most of us to participate in achieving some degree of herd immunity. It is essential that we think hard and fast as a society, because this virus moves and mutates at a speed we cannot control. However, we can control our behavior. We can choose to take this vaccine. And we can choose to hope.
• Dr Sarah Arachchi is a pediatrician in Melbourne, currently based in the United States