Vaccinated!

Today I got my 2nd dose of the COVID19 vaccine.  While I had my appointment scheduled, it seemed that there was a steady flow of walk-ins as well and plenty of people having interest. Differently from San Diego, where you can also get a sticker you see on the cover photo, in Estonia, where I'm right now, I haven't seen any around. Being a digital-first nation, we get digital certificates instead. Part of mine for example shows:

Still, San Diego styles stickers could be cool as well, something that the vaccinated could wear with pride, to encourage other community members around them to get vaccinated as well. Regardless, which of the WHO-approved vaccine you're getting, all of them are moving us forward ending the pandemic.

According to WHO:

Safe and effective vaccines are a game-changing tool: but for the foreseeable future we must continue wearing masks, cleaning our hands, ensuring good ventilation indoors, physically distancing and avoiding crowds.

Being vaccinated does not mean that we can throw caution to the wind and put ourselves and others at risk, particularly because research is still ongoing into how much vaccines protect not only against disease but also against infection and transmission.

See WHO’s landscape of COVID-19 vaccine candidates for the latest information on vaccines in clinical and pre-clinical development, generally updated twice a week. WHO’s COVID-19 dashboard, updated daily, also features the number of vaccine doses administered globally.

But it’s not vaccines that will stop the pandemic, it’s vaccination. We must ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines, and ensure every country receives them and can roll them out to protect their people, starting with the most vulnerable.

Thus, especially considering it is summer still, if you would be meeting people, prefer having those meetings in the socially distanced way. If possible outdoors. Maintaining good personal hygiene is also a good idea not only because of COVID19 but also beneficial to stop other diseases from spreading. Masking up remains a good precaution as well while being indoors in public spaces.

And if you have extra time at the beach or summer cottage, the new trendy handmade gifts for the coming months are rock-solid reminders:

And do that relaxing after getting vaccines still, in a socially responsible manner.

Photo credits: Belinda Fewings on Unsplash and  Marisol Benitez on Unsplash