Hey you, go get your COVID booster shot.
I got mine last week. I felt all kinds of woozy. Heart-rate got real fast at one point. Nausea crawled upward like the back of a garbage truck, high and ready to empty out. I was fine, though. The bad stuff lasted for a day. The good stuff, the experts hope, will last much longer.
Unlike the COVID vaccines, we’re coming to learn.
If you got vaxxed over six months ago, you can get the boost. If you haven’t been vaxxed yet, I’m not talking to you (or I am, but you’ll have to mentally replace all mentions of the boost herein with the initial jab(s)). But if you’re an adult, over 18, and you haven’t been boosted yet, then go and get the boost. You don’t have to be immunocompromised. You don’t have to be in the obesity zone. You just have to be human, and alive, and have a sleeve ready to roll up (short sleeves are OK, too, but don’t go topless).
I’m worried folks are letting this one slide. We’re already vaxxed, we say. This is dragging on too much, we say. I’m having doubts about that Fauci fella, we whisper, too.
No matter. Get boosted. It’s a day of your life.
The pandemic’s still raging. The numbers are awful. This year saw more U.S. deaths than last year. In the year’s second half, those deaths favored the unvaccinated. No matter. Even if you were vaxxed, it’s wearing off.
This disease is out to get us.
Get the boost. Don’t let it slide. Being a victim of pandemic fatigue will make way for a whole ‘nother, deeper, more cellular form of victimization. You’re not protected enough. The jabs weren’t good enough. Your firewall’s on its way down like Joe Biden’s approval rating.
Do it now. Today’s good. Go get the boost.
Get the boost if you’re a left-winger. Get the boost if you’re a right-winger. Get the boost if you don’t have a moment in your day for politics. Get the boost if your mother never gave you a compliment. Get the boost if you check in with your mom every hour. Get the boost if you’re a Black Lives Matter supporter. Get the boost if you can’t fall asleep at night without high-fiving the Kyle Rittenhouse poster above your bed.
Get the boost if you’re sad. The boost if you’re upbeat. The boost on a Tuesday (or any other day will do). The boost if you have body dysmorphic disorder. The boost if you’re fresh in from the Caribbean. Tell you what: get the boost if you’re a man. The boost if you’re a woman. Boy, girl, any gender that is known. Or unknown. Get the boost.
Get the boost if you’re an Ashkenazi Jew. Get the boost if you belt out Lizzo in the shower. If you’re a secretive creepazoid. An outspoken everyperson. Always wanted to paint but couldn’t find a canvas. From Africa. Asia. Europe. South America. Canada. Antarctica. Smile on your face. Glare in your eye. Delusions in your head. Dance in your mothereffing step.
Go get the boost.
Get the boost if you’re an anti-vaxxer. Get the boost if you’re a QAnon devotee. If you think liberals drink children’s blood. Or Alex Jones lands the occasional decent point.
If you’re a progressive activist, go get the boost. Get the boost if you scold strangers online. The boost if you’re holier than thou. The boost if you can’t recall ever having had a conversation with an actual working class person.
Get the boost.
Do it ‘cause you’re human. Be pro-social. Pro-species. Our species. The future. Pave that mothergrabber forward. Plant the motherloving seeds. Believe in days brighter than these ones. Do it for your children. Their children. Do it if you have no children. Hey:
Do it if you hate children.
Do it ‘cause you like to wear your wife’s lipstick when she’s not home. Do it ‘cause you crave honey-glazed takeout from that Thai place you love. Do it ‘cause you have a date coming up on Sunday. Do it ‘cause you’re a transgender actress lighting in to the West Coast from Indiana over great-green-rolling hills: stars in her eyes, hard dreams burning up her heart. Do it so you live to be 100. Do it so you can evolve into a village elder. So you can look at others through wrinkly elder’s eyes, saying unto them, “I survived the plague. And it was as awful as you’ve heard.”
Nobody asked for this grim century — would wish it on their worst enemy: 9/11. Climate change. War in Iraq. Great Recession. Donald Trump. 1-6-21. We can’t catch a break. COVID laughs at our sorrow. COVID holds private meetings in dark back rooms, cooking up new permutations to kill us dead.
Get up. Kill the bastard back.
Get the boost. If it fails — if it wears thin in six months, like the other shots before it — then go get the next boost after that. And then the next one. This isn’t a pharmaceutical commercial. This is a war: Humans vs. Nature. We have the tools. We have the know-how.
What we need is the brains and the will.
No matter who you are, where you’re from, what you’re called, what your T-shirt says, the content of your bumper stickers, the substance of your soul:
Just get the boost.
It’s like my wedding day: I stood jittery before the aisle. My father was standing to my right. He asked how I felt. I said I was extremely nervous. He said, “You’ll be dancing before you know it.”
So will you.
Now get the boost.
Anyone willingly taking this disaster of a stab has lost their mind. these companies are all saying boosters will be required every 6 months and these boosters and subsequent yearly shots will have to be the same brand as the original shot you got. Locking in a a steady profit from now until the end of time. You are dead to me.
People who are concerned about having to take it yearly, you are aware that you need the flu shot every year and you need boosters of other shots, as well. It’s not like it’s unheard of. Not every damn thing is a conspiracy. ?
Fox (so-called) News, Congressional Republicans, and other shills for the uber-rich want the pandemic to continue in order to undermine the President’s effort to get the country back on track. Screw them by getting vaccinated or a booster. Or, if you care about the health of your community, get vaccinated or a booster. Our county is doing better than most (especially better than those counties that voted for Trump), but we still have a way to go until we reach “herd immunity” and COVID-19 fades away like measles and polio. Do your part.