yes, indeed AZ

Years from now when I look back during this period of my life I'd like to know that today was the day I managed to book my first vaccination appointment for Monday, May 3rd.

I will get the Astra-Zeneca vaccine which has been approved for people aged 45+ (of which I am a member). I had thought that I would get vaccinated at the easily walk-able arena that is close to where I live, but appointments opened up in the pharmacy at Costco that I was able to register for, so I took the soonest next available appointment.

I will take a city bus to get there; it would take about 36 minutes to get there compared to about an hour to walk there.

Earlier this week, here in Canada and specifically here in Quebec, we had the first case of a person dying from having taken exactly this vaccine, she died with an embolism in her head. The statistics show that approximately one out of every 100,000 can be subject to an embolism of any kind and that usually it is treatable. At the press conference that announced this, the official mentioned that over 400,000 doses of AZ have already been injected into Quebecers; so with this many people safely vaccinated it means that there are fewer people who could get C19 complications and be sent to hospital and who could eventually have died or been released with Long Covid. They mentioned that between 4 and 20 days after having received the jab, that is the usual window for these serious reactions to take effect, so I will be self monitoring carefully.

I will have received the vax jab without ever having had a single test. Who knows? Perhaps through all of this time that has passed I had it asymptomatically and passed it on to no one.