I got both Pfizer shots at the beginning of the summer. Those of us with Tricare, and who live close to Hill Air Force Base, were able to go get the Pfizer jabs at the base clinic — even us ugly Army Joes. I’ve never been much bothered by vaccines mostly because the military doesn’t give you a choice, and when they say it’s time to get stuck, you go get stuck. Back in May I was eager to not have a mask on my face for duty, and I trust the medicinal foundation for vaccinations because it’s a solid foundation built on many decades of research, tests, and the hundreds of millions of people who’ve avoided disease as a result.
That last is the most important part in my book. A thing is true when it’s been proven true across hundreds of millions of cases. Most of us will never have to suffer illnesses which were commonplace 100 years ago, thanks to the vaccines we get as infants, and the boosters we receive up through adolescence. Army (in my case) goes the extra mile, and there have been some instances when I had to suffer as a result. Three days after departing AIT the Army shot me up again, and by the time I was back home in Seattle I was sick as a dog. Stayed sick as a dog for over two weeks. Miserable sick. The kind of fever and sore throat combination I’ve seldom experienced.
But even that ordeal doesn’t deter me from getting the jabs, because getting the jabs is a fairly solid insurance policy about which I’ve got few qualms. So when Pfizer shots for Covid-19 became available I hit the Hill AFB clinic as soon as could be done, and got both doses. The second of which did make me semi-sick for about 48 hours, but it wasn’t awful. I was just not feeling okay for a day or two. And then I was fine.
And that’s the experience for the overwhelming number of people who’ve gotten Covid-19 vaccines to date.
So, why are people not getting them?
More importantly: why are some people so damned adamant that people get them? To include making threats, or worse?
One of the things I’ve disliked most about Covid Panic, is how it’s brought out the authoritarian streak in a lot of individuals. To include people in positions of power. When we talk about suspending fundamental civil liberties “or else” we are going to a drastic place for the sake of something which is, by my estimation, not that drastic.
Covid-19 is not, after all, the Black Plague. We do not have millions of rotting bodies stacked in the gutters. Half the population hasn’t been piled on carts to be dumped in the nearest mass grave, then heaped with lime. It’s just not the sort of disease many have worked it up to be — complete with hysterics about that portion of the populace which isn’t eager to get jabbed with a concoction which is, after all, still fairly new. And besides which, whatever happened to bodily autonomy? Why are many of the people who wear “My body! My choice!” t-shirts to feminist rallies now the same people Tweeting about how they want unvaxxed families held down and force-vaxxed at gunpoint by paramedics and the cops??
Get a grip. Please.
Vaccines are not foolproof. They are a deterrent. They work for most, but not for all, and yes, some people do have severely adverse reactions.
No, I never believed vaccines cause autism, and I suspect those who believe vaccines do cause autism have latched on to a theory which just doesn’t have any medical evidence to support it — merely frightening anecdotal evidence which reads eerily similarly to the frightening anecdotal evidence being presented in 2021 by pro-vaxxers to shame/blame the vaccine-hesitant. “Because if you don’t get vaccinated you and everyone you love will die horribly, and you will deserve it, you morons!”
Again, get a grip.
Vaccination must be a persuasion game.
I myself don’t take much persuading because I trust the medicine on this prophylactic measure and I know it’s ensured myself and my family have avoided many of the terrible maladies which typified generations past — people who did not have the benefit of vaccines.
But I also understand that a lot of other people are not persuaded. And I am sympathetic, even if I disagree. There have been instances (cough, Tuskeegee, cough) when medical professionals and the authorities have done dreadful things to innocent people those same professionals and authorities deemed expendable. Which is an unforgiveable breach of public trust, and goes a long way toward explaining why so many people are not convinced that the vaccine is an imperative. Certainly not enough to obey the commandments of the media and state officials without turning a jaundiced eye on the matter.
So why are we so determined to make the vaccine just another front in the seemingly endless culture war which surrounds us every day, and saturates our media experience? Can people not be left alone? And how willing are you (ubiquitous) to let your fear become an excuse to suspend the rights of others? It’s easy for you to talk about force-vaxxing the masses if you don’t stand to lose your freedom. Everybody loves being a wannabe-Stasi when (s)he/xer believes (s)he/xer is going to be on the Right Side™ of the battle.
I myself would prefer it if there was no battle. Some things — like fundamental liberties — really are more important than supposed herd immunity. Especially when we’re talking about a disease which is only marginally more potent than the usual flu, which has routinely killed many, many thousands of people every winter in North America anyway. We used to just take that toll as a matter of course. It had always been with us. Despite yearly flu vaccinations which were (knock, knock) an educated guess. Not a guarantee.
I also like what Mike Rowe recently said on his Facebook page:
Every single American who wants the vaccine has had the opportunity to get it — for free. Those who have declined will not be persuaded by the likes of me. At this point, I’m afraid the government has but one course of sensible action: get the FDA on board, stat, and then, provide an honest, daily breakdown of just how quickly the virus is spreading among the unvaccinated, versus the vaccinated. No more threats, no more judgments, no more politics, no more celebrity-driven PSAs, no more ham-fisted attempts at public shaming. Just a steady flow of verifiable data that definitively proves that the vast, undeniable, overwhelming majority of people who get this disease are unvaccinated. In other words, give us the facts, admit your mistakes, try on a bit of humility, and stop treating the unvaccinated like the enemy.
That final admonishment is key. Because the unvaccinated are not the enemy. And I don’t know how we’ve arrived at a point in America where people breezily and commonly speak as if those who are hesitant about the vaccine are the enemy, need to be treated as an enemy, must be punished for being an enemy, etc. This is wholly and patently un-American. Do any of you who Tweet and post such outlandishness stop to think that this is precisely what happened to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor? People were enemy-ized for no fault except being an ethnicity, and one of the great crimes of the 20th century occurred “for the safety” of the nation. Because we were at war, and apparently being at war justified the suspension of the fundamental rights of countless people who were deemed “dangerous and unsafe” by the same mentality currently demanding vaccine passports, and that people who can’t or won’t provide proof of vaccination be barred from restaurants, stores, public venues, medical facilities, and government offices.
Yes, you, Covid Karen, are talking and acting like the same people who put the Japanese Americans into camps.
Congratulations. That’s a very wicked road you seem to want to go down. I won’t go down it with you, even though I do believe (as Mike Rowe believes) vaccines work, and that the unvaccinated are exposing themselves to needless risk at this particular time.
So let’s to dial back the hyperbole and the commandments and the rhetoric. Too much has been inflicted on too many people already. Stop treating your fellow citizens like they are subhuman scum who need to be locked up or locked out or locked down, and realize that the more you command and threaten them, the less persuasive you become. And the more you undermine the very cause you claim to be championing.
Brad R. Torgersen 
With all due respect, this is not about a vaccine, nor is it even about a virus. This is all about conditioning people to accept conditioning, to follow orders, to obey commands, to do what they are told, and to STFU.
I said this about the seat belt laws so many years ago. I saw that it was not about seat belts, or about traffic safety, it was all about conditioning people to STFU and obey. Same goes with the anti-smoking hysteria. It was never really about smoking, not for the ruling class, it was about STFU and do what you’re told, in general.
After decades of this, people’s minds have turned to excrement and their free will is turned to jello.
And that’s why your suggestion at the end of your thoughtful essay is unrealistic. The whole point of the long term project was to get us to this point, where most people are need to be told, ” Stop treating your fellow citizens like they are subhuman scum who need to be locked up or locked out or locked down.” They will not listen because it’s too late, their minds are gone, all that’s left is the mindless authoritarian drone.
So far something over 130,000,000 Americans vaxxed, with around 30,000 reactions worth recording and about 7000 really serious reactions. That’s pretty good odds, about 100x better than taking your chances with the virus. (And consider: reactions reflect your genetic load. If you react badly to the controlled dose of a vaccine, you’re likely to have the same reaction only worse from the uncontrolled dose of the virus itself.)
The one thing that’s since come out is that if you’re already immune, you probably should not get the shot, so now that it’s essentially endemic, antibody testing needs to become a Thing. OTOH, all prior evidence suggests immunity is long-lasting or even for life.
Me, I got the Pfizer jab as soon as it was available, and ceased worrying about any of it. I’m sufficiently immune for all practical purposes.
Much of the tech behind it was developed at my alma mater, and has been in use for about ten years now. Here’s a (7+ hours and dead air not trimmed) presentation from a few years back, which I found fascinating, then again my majors were biochemistry and microbiology.
[Tho I see the antivax idiots have lately arrived in the comments cancer…]
The cynic in me concurs with your assessment: various authority figures have been eagerly conditioning us to accept restrictions “for our own good” for decades.
By the same token, seatbelts do save lives, and smoking is bad for you.
Maybe that’s the trick, for any savvy despot? Smuggle the tyranny in through measures piggybacked on things which have a sound foundation of evidence?
The optimist in me wants to believe, however, that too many Americans simply won’t go along with endless lockdowns, mask mandates, covid passports, and all the rest. They will either flout the rules — a classically American move if there ever was one — or they will go above, around, under, or through the rules by using or inventing parallel institutions/services which are beyond the reach of the restrictionists. Ergo, if New York City is to become a covid appartheid, people simply ignore the rules as much as they can get away with, or they leave New York City altogether.
I will say this: it’s gonna get spicy when black customers find themselves barred from services and businesses on account of vax requirements. Can you say lawsuits by the gross?
7,000 serious cases out of 130,000,000 vaxxed is damned great odds if you ask me. Most def erring very safely on the side of caution, to get vaxxed. I’ve seen a handful of very flashlight-under-the-chin reports about vax cases gone wrong, but I think these are so far to the margin it’s difficult for me to understand why people continue to insist that the outliers are the norm?
My one and only bad experienced with a vaccine was for (I think?) yellow fever, and it amounted to me just basically having the disease and being miserable sick for 18 days. Terrible. Especially since I was newly home from military training and any thought my wife and I had about celebrating — ahem, you know — got s***canned. Alas. Man, that was some serious illness.
But I got over it.
I guess it all comes down to what people are willing to risk. The disease, or the vaccine? I’ve seen convincing arguments both ways. I admit I don’t get fearing the vaccine over the disease, but that’s just me. And I continue to be appalled by the militant pro-vaxxers who are talking some insane s*** about force-vaxxing, putting people in jail, or worse. That’s just asinine.
“seatbelts do save lives, and smoking is bad for you.”
There’s a scene in the movie “Bullitt” where the bad guys are shown putting on their seat belts as the prepare to chase Steven McQueen in his Mustang with their Dodge Charger 440 Magnum. Their seat belts didn’t save their lives when they crashed in to the gas station and it blew up. So, there are other factors involved in terms of statistics.
Same with smoking. How do we know that smoking is bad for everyone? We assume that inhaling smoke has to be bad, because, how could it not be? Yet millions of people smoked for centuries during which life expectancy increased by leaps and bounds. Now that nobody smokes any more, life expectancy is dropping like a rock.
But seriously, the question is not health, it is the freedom to strike the balance between health and other considerations. It’s tyrannical for government or quasi-government entities to make such decisions for people.
The problem is people are too morally depraved and spiritually reprobate to see the problem, they are easily persuaded that the simple and childish calculation is sufficient and should be enforced at bayonet point on anyone with their own ideas or tastes.
Yes, I am very opinionated, and quite snarky about my opinion. I can’t seem to help my self.
Way back in the day of my own military service (which included a tour at Hill AFB which assignment I loved, BTW, and it absolutely broke my heart to be reassigned and not to be returned to the Combat Camera unit there – curse you, AF detailers for my career field! Curse you again!) I had to get the flu shot every year, and it was a minor annoyance, because I regularly got sicker from the flu shot than I usually did from the flu. I eventually learned to swallow a couple of Motrin and go get the damn shot late in the afternoon before a two-day break. Since I retired, I have refused getting the flu shot – and miraculously – only have caught the flu twice in twenty years. The second time in very late 2019, my daughter and I both were laid low for more than a week with something that made us both sicker than dogs, although not bad enough to go to a hospital. We are both pretty certain that we had the Commie Crud – as neither of us has been sick since, in spite of not being all that scrupulous about mask-wearing, sanitizing, hand-washing, etc.
Honestly, what I would really prefer – over the incessant hectoring to get vaxxed – would be wide-spread testing for Commie Crud antibodies. If we and others had it, got over it and am now relatively immune – then why the continued hectoring about the vaccine? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thalidomide, Phen fen, Rezulin, Vioxx, etc. https://prescriptiondrugs.procon.org/fda-approved-prescription-drugs-later-pulled-from-the-market/
Most of the “vaxxed” didn’t get vaccinated. They volunteered for an experimental gene therapy without knowing anything about long term effects and gave up all rights to hold the pharmaceutical companies accountable if they experience adverse effects.
Even if I hadn’t already survived Covid I wouldn’t take any of the jabs until they’ve done long term studies. In conjunction with the demand for everyone to use masks that are ineffective against airborne and aerosolized viruses it reinforces to me, and others, that the reasons we’re being pressured into taking these jabs has nothing to do with this disease. Particularly when their tests can’t tell the difference between one corona virus and another, nor apparently a corona virus and a flu virus since they’re telling the health centers to find another one that can.
I was an early adopter of Winnie the Flu in March 2020. Two weeks that I would not enjoy repeating, but it didn’t put me in the hospital and I lived, though I’ve apparently got two of the co-morbidities that make it rough on people. That being said, whether those co-morbidities were before or after the fact is an open question, because before that I hadn’t been to a doctor in something like… two decades.
And since I’m a firm believer in naturally-acquired immunity, and all the evidence I’ve seen (no matter how much they try to bury it) has proven me correct, I hope I can be forgiven for not taking the vaccine. I see no reason to let someone inject a yet-to-be-proven foreign substance into my body for what appears to be no functional gain. I am not anti-vaxx. If people think it will help them, then they should by all means get the jab and I will not mock them or judge them for doing so. But for me personally? Nah. (We won’t even talk about my needle phobia.)
This whole thing has been an exercise in Our Betters getting their authoritarianism on, and they keep moving the goalposts and changing the narrative. At this point, I don’t trust the CDC or the FDA to find their own asses with a flashlight, a map, and both hands. But people have gotten so turned around and paranoid by this thing that a woman in Alaska literally *ran away* from us when she found out we weren’t vaccinated, even though we’d been having a perfectly friendly discussion about birds in the previous ten minutes leading up to that.
And I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better. 😦
Oh for the love of heaven IT IS NOT A VACCINE.
It does not prevent you from getting the disease. More importantly, it does not prevent you from *passing it on once you’ve got it*.
All it is rated to do (and you can go read the Pfizer materials on the website for yourself) is prevent “clinical” cases (that is cases bad enough to get you hospitalized). Real vaccines prevent subclininical cases (which is why I stay current with dTap). They are sterilizing.
Mass injections of this thing can, and are breeding more deadly versions of a virus that woulld have otherwise burned out like SARS-1. Remember that one? Worried about it? All of you getting this therapy which should be reserved for the seriously frail and immunocompromised while NOT fighting for treatment options are like those jokers who insist on getting antibiotics for their viral infections. You are screwing the old and frail over because you’re scared, and reality-challenged.
#MaskTheVaxxed
Also your assertion that corona virus vaccines, never mind therapies using mRNA, never mind utterly novel lipid-protein nano-particle delivery mechanisms are a “mature and well-understood” med tech is a freaking joke. Up until now all corona virus vaccine attempts have run into massive Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) effects. But this go-round, the tech companies think they figured out the issue. Previously the issues started showing up around the two year mark. No time to be sure!
I appreciate you are trying to make peace between the authoritarian monsters pushing this on little kids and pregnant women, and “sensible people who trust vaccines**” but you are not helping because this is not a vaccine. It is a novel therapy. .
The info Mike Rowe wants exists, from countries like Israel. But you have not seen it, have you?
(*The APA study deliberately conflates those getting the shot during the first 20 weeks – where the abortion rate is 70% with those getting it after. Of course you have to read the thing for yourself, because these jokers advocate chemical castration for prepubescent children.)
(**Just make sure the ones you give your kid are not made by the CCP)
There is supposition (I believe from the BBC or some other European source) that VAERS only contains 1% of reported vaccine injuries. And the deaths are only reported if the doctor really pushes for it (along with career suicide). Sorry, I don’t trust any of the numbers coming out.
Reportedly a lot of the anti-vax rhetoric actually originates as an ongoing Russian disinformation campaign (sow discord among your enemies, keep ’em too busy to attack Russia)… and given that the whole raft of Usual Suspects start spouting each latest-scare in unison, I’m inclined to believe it. My first source on that also said it’s backfired, as Russians suspicious of their own gov’t get a lot of their news from American alt-sources, many of which will run with whatever clickbait comes down the pike, causing a lot of vaccine hesitancy in Russia.
Also, when I looked up one of the naysaying doctors at random, far as I could tell he doesn’t exist. And several times whilst perusing such info, my inner biochemist has jumped up yelling, “That’s not how it works!” If they get the basics wrong, do you think they get the whole right??
Further, if you do not yourself understand the subject, how do you determine who DOES know the subject, and is telling you the truth? People will say, “I researched it” but that nearly always means “I went looking for sources that support my existing bias”, and forgetting that just because Fauci proved to be a Chinese tool doesn’t make the naysayers any more correct.
Here’s the bottom line: around half of adult Americans have had the jab, including somewhere around 80% of older folks. If it’s so deadly, where are the bodies in the streets?
As to “most of those now catching the China Crud were fully vaccinated” … er, that says nothing about their immunity status. It’s been pointed out that mishandled vaccine leads to failed immunity, and some people just don’t develop immunity anyway. We now have enough such that they’re starting to show up in the stats. (Vaccine producing 65% immunity is considered good; 80% is stellar. Pfizer’s initial challenge tests put theirs at 95%, which was undoubtedly optimistic, but shows that it’s on the better end for good immunity. I’d guess in the Real World it’s around 80%.)
As noted, at this point we should be doing antibody tests prior to any jabs or boosters (I’m told the VA offers this test for free) but mandatory jabs and vaccine passports are the wrong way, and lo the legal fun to be had…
It should be remembered that viruses do not make you sick. Your immune system’s response to the mess viruses make (killing each cell they invade) is what makes you sick. Similarly, your immune system’s response to a vaccine can make you sick, because it can’t tell the difference between that and wild virus. I’d guess this mostly happens with people who have a generally hyperactive immune response. (eg. allergies)
Me, I used to get the flu every year along with everyone else. Then came the vaccine in the 1970s, and after I’d had 4 or 5 different flu vaccines, I stopped getting flu entirely. I still get the annual jab, because reminding the immune system is often useful.
Hilariously, we’ve been traveling all over the country (everywhere from Florida to Alaska and many points between–eight states last year after it hit, and eight states so far this year, some more than once like Arizona, Texas, and Florida) since May of 2020 when they started opening things back up, and I haven’t had so much as a sniffle. The flu skipped me this season, and I didn’t get Con Crud from the two (admittedly tiny) in-person conventions I have managed to get to either. It’s like my immune system said “well, that was terrible” and has decided to stomp hard on anything I come in contact with before it has the chance to actually do anything.
Not that I think I’m bulletproof or anything, but I’m not going to huddle at home worrying about getting sick when there are birds to be photographed and I’m still in good enough shape to chase them.
Gosh, a bunch of obviously educated folks with widely varying takes on a controversial subject and no insults or name calling? What is wrong with you guys, don’t you know how this is done??!!
Seriously, I haven’t made up my mind about this yet, but I live in a fairly isolated way so not too much immediate risk. I really appreciate the way all of the posts were laid out, logically and precisely. Thanks!
“Sterilizing” vaccines that actually =prevent= infection are the exception, not the rule. Generally speaking, “preventing disease” just means keeping virus count below the threshold where you start to have symptoms, and below where you shed enough virus to be a hazard to the susceptible. Here’s a decent layman’s article:
https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-few-vaccines-prevent-infection-heres-why-thats-not-a-problem-152204
or if you want a professional paper illustrating one such mechanism, DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01166
Salient point: “Asymptomatically infected people typically produce virus at lower levels. Though there is not a perfect relationship, usually more virus equals more disease. Therefore, vaccinated people are less likely to transmit enough virus to cause severe disease. This in turn means that the people getting infected in this situation are going to transmit less virus to the next susceptible person. This has been neatly shown experimentally using a vaccine targeting a different virus in chickens; when only part of a flock was vaccinated, unvaccinated birds still showed milder disease and produced less virus.”
This is because particle count matters, and that threshold varies by virus (and replication rate — slower replication means more time to develop immunity and fight it off). Rabies, a slow replicator, requires a fairly high particle count to infect, and can take a couple months to kill. Canine parvovirus, an extremely fast replicator, can infect with as few as SIX virus particles and can kill within 48 hours. Coronavirus is somewhere between, but it’s been shown that as expected, dose (virus particle count) makes the disease. Reduce the “dose” and you get less symptomatic disease. Vaccine is a pretty reliable way of reducing virus particle count.
And there are several types of vaccines, and variants thereof, depending on what worked.
www DOT historyofvaccines DOT org/content/articles/different-types-vaccines
As to “experimental gene therapy” — this is a complete misunderstanding of how RNA works. DNA is the template for RNA, which in turn is the template for proteins (which in turn run everything else). But RNA is incomplete, and cannot be used to create DNA. Nor is there any cellular mechanism for turning RNA into DNA (genetic material). mRNA (messenger RNA) is just the delivery boy that provides the message “build this here protein” which happens to match one bit of the virus. Your cells do as they’re told, then recognize that protein as the sign of a foreign gang, report it to the authorities, and thereafter your immune system is on the lookout for that gang tattoo, as it were.
Also, considering that about 40% of the mammalian genome originated as inclusions from viral DNA, well, it’s not like “gene therapy” isn’t perfectly natural. Every infection by a DNA virus (disease-causing or not; we live in Virus Soup) carries the possibility that you’ll gain some of its DNA… not that it’s likely to do anything.
Interesting post by Derek Lowe, PhD (chemistry):
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/08/16/a-new-antibody-dependent-enhancement-hypothesis
Conclusion: it’s not happening.
Some interesting comments too (and a few alarmists).
“Up until now all corona virus vaccine attempts have run into massive Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) effects.”
This is not even remotely true. SARS-1 ran into such problems. Canine coronavirus vaccine has been around for almost 40 years with zero issues (initially as a modified live, now as killed vaccine, because the MLV process was =given= by Cornell to a private manufacturer, who produced an excellent MLV vaccine for a few years, then went tits-up and the whole thing was lost.) Bovine coronavirus vaccine has also been around for a while. Work in other species has been a mixed bag. Here’s a quick overview:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32563608/
Canine coronavirus used to be significant because it knocks down the immune system, directly enabling infection by canine parvovirus, and nearly all puppies contracted coronavirus before 6 weeks old (corona was a mild nuisance, but parvo was fatal). Once we had better parvo vaccines, canine coronavirus ceased to be a problem (tho I strongly suspect that canine coronavirus has cross-immunity with Covid19).
Hello from the UK
Thank you for your post. I am glad you have questioned the narrative.
I would point out that where Mike Rowe say the vaccine is free is misleading to say the least. It is NOT free, we pay for them through taxes, whether we want to or not. I don’t, that is for sure.
I researched into vaccines last year at the age of 60 years and realised that, having thought they were of some use, I was in fact wrong.
I put my research on my website which explains why. I cover the other aspects of Covid 19 including immune system.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/?s=vaccination
Kind regards
Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
Hello from the UK
Thank you for this. I share your view re the seat belt laws etc. ‘Nanny state knows best.’
Nanny state knows sweet FA as nanny state salary paid for by dumb taxpayers supplemented by big pharma etc. which is kept going by dumb populations. Dumb populations kept going by big pharma drugs and education system that does not encourage critical thinking, let alone thinking.
Big pharma drugs, including vaccines, are primarily neuro-toxins which slow down the body and thinking. NICE people big pharma. NICE and Nazi people. Or NICE and nasty, take your pick.
Hi from the UK
The reason bodies are not piling up in the street is because people’s immune systems vary. If it is good you should not react too badly to the poison, if it is not a placebo. If it is bad you will suffer and if very bad then you may die.
It could be that deaths are being underrepresented however.
And the long term effects cannot be assessed until time has elapsed.
Vaccines can only harm or occasionally kill (so far) unless they contain saline for example. I used to think they did some good but then in my 60th year I took the trouble to research.
Hello from the UK.
You stick with immunity like me. Vitamin D a key ingredient to good immune system. The women in Alaska who ran away from you must have had her head baked. Baked Alaska a desert so this may make sense.
You may be interested in my post on vaccines and why they are pointless.
Dear Julie
Sounds to me you have been sensible and got you fair dose of vitamin D via the sunshine.
As regards photographing birds I hope you got some good shots. In the UK we have seen an increase in our garden birds, including the normally shy wrens.
It concerns me that the world has gone mad over the seasonal ‘flu. Their minds have flown away. Perhaps they have migrated like birds do and will return home one day.