It's been a good week! I got my $1,400 stimulus check on Wednesday and my first shot of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. 
I'm only 38, but I'm what's considered to be an "essential worker" since I'm employed at a grocery store, so I think that helped move me up the list a bit for vaccination.
The toughest part about getting the shot for me was finding a parking space in the parking garage. After that, they had you go down a set of stairs into a conference center and walk through a long line, at the end of which was your shot. They kept the line moving pretty quickly, as they were staffed not only by their own personnel, but also by people at the fire department and police. You had to have a consent form of course because you had to show two stamps on it -- one red and one orange -- before getting into the room where the shots were administered. One staffer gave you the first stamp after making sure the top part of your form was filled out and another further down the line gave you the second stamp after confirming your ID and the rest of the form. That process kept the line moving.
Once you got into the actual conference room, the staffer who confirms your stamps assigned you a table and there's somebody there waiting to give you your shot. You just answered standard questions about your health and get your shot. Then they gave me a card with a date on which they would text me with info concerning my second dose (April 9th for me) and had you go to the other side of the conference room where a bunch of spaced chairs were set up. You sat in one of the chairs for a designated amount of time to make sure you didn't experience a reaction to the shot, then you left, putting a sticker the shot guy gave you with your allotted leave time (mine was 12 minutes after the point of injection) on the chair as you left so they'd know which chair to clean. And that was it. Smooth as glass. There were a lot of people there, so vaccinations appear to be picking up steam. I would note though that it looked like I was among the youngest people there, at 38.
The shot itself was nothing. It was quick and it hurt a lot less than even like my annual blood tests do. 30 minutes later though, my left started feeling pretty sore, and I mean beyond just the injection site itself. After an hour or so though, most of the soreness went away. I've had no side effects other than that, if you can even count that. The particular muscle where I had the shot is actually still sore now, almost two days later, which is unusual for me when it comes to shots. It kicks ass that way. The amount of soreness though is minor and only noticeable when I raise my left arm above my head or try to do push-ups or something.
As to the stimulus check, you don't know how helpful it is for someone in my financial position to have that. After last month's power grid failure here in Texas, I, along with tons of other people, got slapped with an unusually high electric bill right afterward (because capitalism), which was devastating for me because I make so little money to begin with. I would've been in serious financial trouble without help of some kind. Now I can not only make my bills for this month easily, but furthermore I was finally able to order a PlayStation 5 in addition!
The U.S. appears to currently have the fourth or fifth-highest COVID vaccination rate on Earth, with about 24% of the population having received at least one vaccine dose as of yesterday. It's an absolute sea change from the first month after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were given emergency authorization when the virus itself was generally spreading faster than the pace of shots. One tries to avoid inserting too much in the way of politics into this thread, but it just seems like having a different administration has made a tremendous difference.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 27 March 2021
