The Vaccine

 The NY Times has an interactive page where you can figure out roughly when you'll get the vaccine. Apparently, I'm behind 135.7 million out of 328 million Americans. I figure that gets me vaccinated sometime in the early spring. But there are some interesting wrinkles, and I wonder if the Times has accommodated them.

First, there are currently 14,500,000 confirmed cases of Covid in America. Will people who have survived Covid get the vaccine? If so, why? Would it work on them? We are adding around 50,000 cases a day so the number of Covid survivors will grow, too. 

Second, (on a personal note) does being a private school teacher mean that I won't be given preference? I can see one world where teacher's unions will prioritize their members (and rightfully so) whereas non-union teachers would not benefit. I can also see a world where wealthy parents or alums sneak us to the front of the line so that freaking hockey season can happen.

And of course, thirdly, we know that there are a bunch of freaking maroons who are going to refuse the vaccine. How many millions of non-masking nutjobs are going make a political stink over mandatory vaccinations? 

When it comes to the non-maskers, I'm not convinced that their screaming matches their numbers. I live in a red town in a blue state. There is a cigar bar on Main Street that has a bunch of middle aged white guys with goatees sitting around smoking obviously without masks. I'm sure they have a "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirt in their closet. But outside of that, I see almost everyone else wearing a mask. There are those who insist on eating in restaurants, sure, but most places people are wearing masks. As late as October, WebMD found 90% of people wore masks, but polling remains untrustworthy when measuring the Trumpenproletariat. 

We just had a department meeting where we bemoaned the compromises in our teaching that this environment forces upon us. The demands of Covid have made teaching incredibly hard. But hopefully we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully. Because I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.

UPDATE: Paul Campos writes about how we really don't know how bad it is, even with our numbers being horrifically bad.