Covid 19: Vaccination Diary
At this point, you might have already read my 3 part commentary about the situation in Germany with the pandamic still going on. In the last part, I have mentioned wanting to do this diary where I talk about my experience with the whole vaccination process, well here it is. I want to talk about how the vaccination, in general, is perceived in Germany, how and what kind of vaccine options you have, and what it was like for me personally to go through all of that.
The vaccine seems to be a double-edged sword, on the one hand, many people believe it’s the cure for everything and it will get us back to a pandamic free life, on the other hand, people are very confused about the different kinds that there are and who should get them, that they might not actually want to get them at all. I am kinda in-between, I have a problem with needles at the doctors’ office in general, so I have fought with myself for a long time about if I should get the vaccine or not. In the end, I have decided that I want to get it to be protected myself, but also help to prevent the virus from mutating and more variants to come up. But I do also get why some people might be scared.
The first vaccines we had in Germany were AstraZeneca from England and the Biontech/Phizer vaccine which was produced in a collaboration of a german and an american company. They are totally different kinds of vaccines, but most people don’t know how vaccines in general work, so that was confusing right off the bat. Kinda like with the articles which were spread on WhatsApp about who was responsible from the pandamic in the first place, which I had talked about in my commentary part two, misinformation was spread very quickly. Some of it intentionally or unintentionally was even reported about on the news, especially AstraZeneca was made to look bad. At the latest when the risk of getting thrombosis was tied to getting vaccinated with it, no one wanted to get it anymore, which lead to many doses just ending up unused and having to be thrown away.
Partially that was due to the priority system we had at first. Because we had so few doses of the vaccines, they were only giving it to the people who needed them the most, because they had the biggest risk of dying if infected with the virus. Starting with very old people, risk patients with pre-existing conditions, and staff in hospitals and retirement homes. Young people were just not allowed to go to their doctors and get the shots, because we did not have enough and the few doses we had were saved up. And the ones who went unsued oftentimes were not able to be reused again or could not be used on younger people because of dumb rules. The priority system was taken down when we got more doses and more different kinds of vaccines were approved by the EU. Right after that happened, my husband and I got our appointments.
When you wanted to get a shot you had different possibilities. You could either put your name on a list at your locals’ doctor’s office and get notified when they had enough vaccine to give it to you. You could also go into a so-called vaccination center which basically was a temporary build-up hospital for the sole purpose of vaccinating people. Or you could wait for one of the possibilities which were kinda Walk-In Events, where they tried to vaccinate as many people as possible on one day, using the empty stadium from football or other buildings that were just not being used because of the pandamic. My husband and I decided to make an appointment in a vaccination center, because it was the best option for me, as I don’t like to go to the doctors’ office and I had hoped the vaccination in a different environment would be easier for me. Our first appointment was at the beginning of July and the second one was at the end of august(because you had to have a certain amount of time in between).
We didn’t get to choose the company where we got the vaccines from, but we could decide on the kind of vaccine we were getting. We wanted to get one of the mRNA vaccines and then got randomly chosen which one we get by the vaccination center(I will abbreviate it with VC from now on). My husband got Moderna and I got the Biontech/Phizer one. When we got to the VC, it was guarded by security which looked kinda intimidating to me, but with a QR code we got in the mail when booking the appointment, it was fairly easy to get in. We were led by arrows on the ground and a tunnel-like structure with more safety inside guiding us to the booths where the doctors were. We were then briefed by a doctor about what kind of vaccine we were getting and what kind of side effect could arise and after we signed some papers, we were led through another tunnel to a small room.
My husband actually had to shove me in the right direction, because even though we were not at a doctor’s office, it still triggered me and I began crying as soon as I got into that room. But I was very lucky to have a doctor(or a nurse, I am not sure) who was very understanding and tried everything to comfort me. She was even tattooed, which was great because normally when I am in situations like that, people love to say “Oh you have tattoos, therefore you can’t be afraid of needles” even though these are two completely different things, mainly because tattoo needles are way smaller and go only about 3mm deep into your skin. Anyways, the doctor talked to me, tried to distract me, and made the whole process as comfortable for me as possible, which I am very grateful for. I even got candy, which might sound very childish, but was actually meant for my circulation not to collapse.
After the shot, we were led to another corridor where we had to sit for about 15min to see if any allergic reactions would occur, which could have been treated then right away by the medical staff. Gladly we did not experience something like that, drank our free water, tried to calm down, and then we got to leave. All in all, I had to say that it was more pleasant than I feared it to be and we got also pretty lucky, because aside from my husband’s left arm being sore right after, we also did not experience any side effects.
Our second appointment actually had to be rescheduled because of my husband’s work, which only means we got it about a week earlier. We also did not really have to make another appointment, because there seemed to be so few people coming in every day, that it would not have been necessary. So we could just show the paper from our last time getting the shot and were lead-in again. Again everything was the same as last time, we got briefed, signed some papers, and were led to the room. And yes, I cried again, but again everything worked out fine. I did not even experience any noteworthy side effects. My husband had some more pain in the right arm, days after the shot, but luckily also nothing worse.
So that was my experience and I am very happy for it to be done. I was very scared, mostly because of my own pre-existing conditions, but maybe also a little bit because of the very strange and confusing way the media talked about it. I can highly recommend you to go to your local’s doctors office(if you can) and have a talk about which vaccine would be the best for you and then maybe they can also help you find an appointment somewhere. Take someone with you when going there, it makes things easier.
And if you don’t want to get vaccinated for whatever reason, I am not here to tell you otherwise. There is a whole debate going on about an indirect vaccination duty, which I do not support. I think everyone should be able to decide for themselves what they want to do. Even though non-vaccinated people should also accept that they have to get tested to participate in certain events or maybe take an extra step to go somewhere in general. It should not be as big of a hurdle to push someone to get vaccinated, but it can’t be that they have the exact same right as vaccinated people, because that would just not make sense safety-wise, right?
So please keep that in mind, this post is not supposed to be an advertisement or something, I just wanted to tell you how it was for me and maybe answer some questions some of you might have. I hope you all stay safe and healthy.
Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress