Take four

I signed up with my local government (San Juan) for my second booster shot against COVID-19 and by that evening I got the text telling me when and where I should go for the shot and what I should bring (vaxx card, ballpen and ID).

The next morning I showed up at the vaccination center in the mall an hour before my schedule, but since there were so few people I was processed immediately. Including registration and monitoring time I was done in about 25 minutes. There seemed to be more staff – at the entry, registration, pre-vaxx screening, even one telling you where to sit, the actual vaccinators, post-vaxx monitoring – than patients getting the shots, but everybody was courteous, friendly and efficient.

With variants and subvariants popping up every so often, it was a no-brainer for me and the seniors in my family to immediately go and get the second booster shot, as it was for the primary doses and the first booster last year. The non-seniors in my family are chomping at the bit to get their second booster shots, since they go to work and eat out and go out with friends and are trying to live as “new normal” a life as this nasty, wily virus will allow.

Even though the Omicron and its subvariants are supposed to make those infected only mildly ill or even not ill at all (asymptomatic), it is still disruptive and such a hassle to catch the virus. Since you have to isolate, you miss work, schedules and plans are disrupted, household routines upended. If you share a roof with vulnerable people – unvaccinated children, the immunocompromised even though vaccinated and, heaven forbid, the unvaxxed/anti-vaxxers – keeping that virus to yourself may be a real challenge.

As I was going to register online for my shot, I offered to register a fellow senior. She had initially been reluctant to even get the primary shots; the prospect of not being able to go anywhere convinced her to get the first shot, and when she did and nothing bad happened to her, she was enthusiastically encouraging her reluctant relatives and friends to get turok.

She even got her first booster, so I thought she would similarly go for the second booster. I was thus quite surprised when she declined, saying, “Tama na yung tatlo. Ano ba yan, turok ng turok. Pagkatapos nito, baka meron na naman. (Three is enough. After this, there could be more.)”

Seems like it’s no longer vaccine hesitancy but vaccine fatigue that is keeping folks away from the additional jabs.