Category: COVID-19

VaccinedNation

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.

Post-First Dose Pose (June 21, 2021)

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.

Rock ‘n Roll, mofos! Walski’s fully vaccinated…

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.

Stuck in a virus-go-round…

So ’round and around and around we go… where the world’s headed, nobody knows

Ball of Confusion – The Temptations (1970)

The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t start yesterday. Or last few weeks. Or even last few months. If you count from the date the MCO was first instituted – March 18, 2020 – we’re today in the 453rd day of various MCO alphabet soup movement restriction modes.

So it came as a bit of a surprise when Walski saw this being reported today (originally from the Malaysian national news agency Bernama, carried by New Straits Times):

JUST drafting?? Now?? Kind of a major oversight to not have a clue of how to get out of this frickin’ mess, don’t you think so? The headline you see above is how Bernama reported it (NST calls it the “rehabilitation plan”).

You know what it sounds like? PN’s plan to QUIETLY exit… presumably while no one’s looking. Since PN pretty much stole the government from right under PH’s noses, that’s what thieves do – how to escape after it’s all said and done.

Of course, that’s not what it means. Fortunately. Just the cynical side of Walski’s brain on overdrive. And it’s a humid but otherwise dull Sunday afternoon. Like, what else is Walski gonna imagine?

Meanwhile, on the pandemic front…

… we have about 489 less cases today compared to yesterday. And Maxis has successfully administered another 133,804 doses of vaccine as of midnight yesterday.

(Now, tell Walski he’s not the only one who thinks those vaccine infographics look like Maxis ads. Right? Right?)

So yeah, good news on that front. Except Walski still hasn’t gotten his vaccine appointment yet. But hopefully Walski won’t have to whine about that anymore soon. And soon couldn’t come sooner enough.

But back to that recovery/exit plan drafting exercise just announced…

Why wait only until now to start thinking of a recovery plan? Shouldn’t this have been done, oh, maybe about six or even eight months ago? So it’s no wonder why the hashtag #KerajaanGagal (failed government) has continued to resonate and trend on Twitter for the past several weeks. For a coalition that was so gung-ho in stealing the people’s mandate, these guys certainly haven’t been anywhere close to exemplary in handling the COVID-19 crisis. Not in Walski’s book, at least.

Ok, he will give this much to them: they DIDN’T SUCK. Overall report card: C+. Just slightly above average. Nothing to shout about.

Some people have been laying praise on this government for doing what they’re supposed to. Walski really didn’t realize just how low we’ve set the bar for ourselves, because the government has performed… exactly how they should have, no more, perhaps a bit less.

In any case, the gradual dip in the number of new cases in the last couple of days doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. Especially when there have been reports that overall there has been less testing done. The less we test, the less new cases we uncover. That’s just the way it works.

So let’s wait and see if those number improvements sustain. Walski honestly hopes they will, don’t get him wrong.

Well, so much for now. Pray that Walski gets inspired to write about something other than related to this pandemic we’re stuck in next. Because frankly, it’s tiring to even think about this mess we’ve been in for the better part of the last year and a quarter.

As a very good friend of Walski’s always says, “… tired lah, dei!“