Yesterday around 10am, I got my second shot of the ModeRNA COVID-19 vaccine (unsurprisingly, I got my first show four weeks ago); at this point I'm in the countdown to be "fully vaccinated"¹. So far, the side effects have been pretty mild:

• I was maybe a little tired yesterday afternoon
• Yesterday evening I had an elevated temperature of 99.7°F, but no clinical fever
• This morning my arm feels like I lost a really intense game of Punch Buggy

I know the pandemic is nowhere near over and people are dying by the thousands around the world, but I'm certainly happy that my chances of serious illness are now very close to zilch.

Speaking of the pandemic being nowhere near over, let me just say how bizarre I find last week's CDC guidance on face masks and social distancing... 48% of the US is currently vaccinated, with some states as low as 33%. Even here in Alameda County, only 60% of eligible adults are vaccinated so far. I've been spending the last year watching an endless sequence of men² who certainly were not vaccinated refuse to take any precautions; now the CDC is saying that I'm all of a sudden supposed to trust that all the newly-unmasked people around me aren't in the 40% who haven't gotten vaccinated? Yeah, right! I know that I, when I am fully-vaccinated, will not be at much risk, but I'd rather not risk that my infant son join the increasing number of pediatric COVID-19 cases. I'm glad that California is being a little more conservative and waiting until June 15th. It's a damn shame that nobody was able to figure out a reliable "vaccine passport" system yet³; Mozilla has a good article on how this could be done that, unfortunately, I don't think any US state will ever bother to implement.

As usual, stay safe out there, readers.