Covid Vaccine, Part 2
Great news! I’m now fully vaccinated against covid. I got my second shot on Wednesday, and the process was even quicker than my first time which I documented here.
There were a few notable changes for my second shot (aka “jab” as they say, though I think that sounds much scarier.) First, when I first arrived at the Mt. Wellington vaccine center, the people checking appointments and writing name tags asked if this was my first or second shot. Since it was my second shot, he pulled out a green marker and wrote my name in green, not black. This is a signal later on. I breezed through the check-in and health check, then my green name tags go me waved through to the waiting area where I sat in my designated chair.
When it was my turn to meet with the nurse vaccinator, she knew to ask me about my reaction to the vaccine the first time (sore arm and some tiredness, but nothing crazy) and to give me advice specific to getting the second jab. Having the green name tag shaved off about five minutes from my overall processing time. I arrived at 8:40 and was out by 9:15.
New Zealand has ramped up vaccine distribution within the past few weeks. Now 25% of the population has had at least one shot and 15% of the population is fully vaccinated. While this seems low compared to other places, it is still ahead of the projected schedule, and keep in mind that there’s no covid out in the community so there is currently very little risk to anyone in the general public actually catching covid.
Now that vaccinations are really underway, we’re all waiting anxiously to see what the game plan is for opening up borders. Next Thursday we’re going to get a glimpse of what that might look like. Any guesses on what opening the borders will look like? Are you “Team It’s Never Going to Happen” or “Team It’s Happening June of 2022?” Or are you even more optimistic?
