Normalcy was declared. (Normalcy was always a declaration.)
Arundhati Roy, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”
So today is the day Walski gets his second SinoVac jab, three weeks after the first dose in late June. About darned time, if you ask him. No, he’s not complaining – he’s just relieved the waiting is over.
The second dose today was administered at the same vaccination center, housed in the Setia City Convention Centre in Setia Alam, where I got jabbed the first time. The only difference between three weeks ago and today – a heck of a lot more people.
Which is a good thing – for the past several months it seems like the vaccine roll out was moving at a snail’s pace. Fortunately it has ramped up significantly in the past month, and right now just over 10% of the adult population have received both doses of their COVID-19 vaccines, either the SinoVac (which is what I got), the Astra-Zaneca or the Pfizer varieties.
It’s now been about 5 hours since I got the second dose, and so far the side effects aren’t very discernible yet. Apart from feeling some discomfort from what felt like elevated body temperature (but still below 37º C), and a touch of lethargy (more drowsiness, actually), the first jab was pretty much without major side effects.
In the months since the so-called “emergency” was declared earlier this year, the number of new daily cases hasn’t been encouraging. And the many versions of MCO (semi-lockdowns) have not aided in bringing the infection numbers down either. Walski won’t go into the nitty gritty details of why these “efforts” haven’t achieved their desired results, but suffice it to say it’s been the seemingly uncoordinated rollouts, unequal enforcement, and ad hoc caveats introduced midstream that have been the modus operandi. Not impressive, to say the least.
Be that as it may, the ONLY way forward for us to get out of this mess of a pandemic is through mass vaccination. That’s how Walski sees it. And today, Walski joins the 3+ million other Malaysians who have been fully vaccinated.
With the daily dose administration standing at about 300k, and expected to reach 400k per day soon (with more vax channels opened), Walski hopes that we can reach the 75% vaccinated population threshold sooner, rather than later.
The FUBAR of a political mess Malaysia is in aside, it’s a VaccinedNation that will bring some level of normalcy back into our lives here in Malaysia. Perhaps not the normal normal we’ve come to miss, but enough of it to allow us to function better, and more importantly for many, start to earn their living again.
myAsylum 