My COVID-19 Vaccine Experience

With the academic year officially ending on April 30th, the perfect way to start May is with a new blog post. I’ve been drafting a piece since April Fools Day (ironically), but I thought it would be better to hold off until now to post it. College is also no joke. Somehow, my freshman year disappeared in the blink of an eye and I’ve already picked classes for my upcoming year as a sophomore. But one of my favorite moments of this year was when I filled out an application to get my COVID-19 vaccine, and I thought it would be a great idea to talk about my experience with people who have not received their vaccine, questioning the process, or simply don’t want to get it because of medical reasons/personal reasons.

To start off, I go to Franklin & Marshall College. The campus is located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Back when I was researching who was available to be vaccinated, I found out that I was in group 1C according to Pennsylvania’s priority list. This was a problem for me because PA was in group 1A at the time, and there was no news that they would be moving on to any of the other priority groups anytime soon. I even applied as an essential food worker, because I’m employed at a school cafe, but this didn’t get me very far. I was starting to get a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to get my vaccination until after the summer/during the upcoming fall. However, as if luck was on my side, Lancaster sent out news that they would be using Park City Center as a vaccination site for all of its residents. They were moving from priority group 1A to group 1B, and I knew that it was only a certain amount of time before they would respond to my application and ask me to come in.

Park City Center was only giving residents the Pfizer vaccine, simply because that was the only one they had access to. There were other locations that gave residents a choice between Moderna and Pfizer, but they were too far for me personally to reach and they were also working much more slowly than Lancaster, so my age group wasn’t even accepted yet. Moderna and Pfizer are the two vaccines using mRNA technology, which I’ve seen many people joking about on social media. The most interesting one was that individuals who get the vaccine will start “glitching” like a computer program, which made me laugh with disappointment. We’re not robots or computer systems, so I don’t know where the “glitch joke” came from or why some viewers believed it. With something as serious as a COVID-19 vaccination, it’s terrible that jokes like this are being spread and causing misinformation to be thrown in every direction in and out of the online world. There was also the joke of the vaccination putting in a “tracking device” in the body once you receive the shot, which also made me laugh a little. The “tracking device” a lot of anti-vaxxers used were SD cards. And again, people believed them.

Media and news can be really tricky. To this day, even with COVID taking the lives of over 500,000 people in America, and causing chaos in countries like India and Brazil, there are still individuals who reject the idea of wearing masks and downplay the severity of this virus. I’ve met many people who “don’t fear COVID” because they believe their body is able to beat it. And by no means do I think they should be forced to be vaccinated. Instead, however, I do think they should realize what putting others at risk means when they get exposed to a virus, “beat it”, but spread it to at least fifty more people in the process because they don’t believe in mask use. They might heal from the virus, but what about the elderly woman you exposed it to at the supermarket? And what about the people that elderly woman then exposes it to without realizing it? COVID-19 is not a virus to joke around with, and it’s eating off of the selfish. With a mask worn properly on your face, this is the effort being taken in order to get things back to normal and to not have “I care about no one but my self” engraved into your forehead.

At first, I was biased and wanted to receive Pfizer because I believed that “high efficacy = better”. Pfizer and Moderna had the highest efficacy rates compared to others (AstraZeneca & Johnson & Johnson) so I wanted it. But if I had to relay a message to you, it would be this: Every vaccine does the job it was meant for. And every vaccine does it with flying colors, at that. No matter if you have Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson, your body will be able to fight back against COVID-19 and stop you from being hospitalized or dying. So get vaccinated. If you can and don’t have any allergies to vaccinations, don’t be afraid of getting this vaccine.

Before going to Park City Center, I made sure to do my research on Pfizer. I read countless articles, hearing all of the following: vaccinations causing temporary signs of bells palsy, allergic reactions, and even fake news of a woman losing her life after passing out when receiving the vaccine. I fell so deep into researching that I even found comments of people believing that President Biden and members of congress were shot with saline solutions instead of the actual vaccine. I felt the safest while reading about Pfizer’s testing trials. In a trial of 43,000 participants, the Pfizer vaccine was 95% effective at lowering the severity of COVID, which made me feel pretty confident in receiving the vaccination. Unlike others, I am not okay with getting the virus instead of the vaccine. Although I consider myself to be pretty healthy, I have friends with nurses as parents, who tell me all about what it’s like to be hospitalized with COVID-19. I didn’t want to be a risk to my family, especially with me going to college in the heart of a pandemic, and I wanted to feel safer when walking in the streets of New York City when I return home. As cases rose in the United States, my gut was constantly telling me to find a way to get vaccinated. I wore a mask and made sure to social distance, but I could never shake off the worry that one day I would receive a COVD test and it would read positive.

There was so much news frantically coming out about COVID, such as potential brain damage and temporary blindness based on the variant. It was a huge slap to the face when the United States finally acknowledged the other variants (Johnson & Johnson tested on a different variant than Pfizer and Moderna, hence the different efficacy rates) and I had to depend on the news about the “very contagious” variant from the United Kingdom and Brazil when it was already in the United States. So fear and worry were two of the reasons why I was so eager to receive my vaccine. I also was trying to avoid getting it in New York because of long lines and potential risks, so it was great news when my vaccine appointment was scheduled for April 2nd, 2021.

The best way to describe my experience was: fast, extremely organized, and the nicest workers ever. I had to show proof of my appointment before stepping into the building, and my temperature was checked as an essential worker asked me if I had any COVID symptoms or any recent positive COVID-19 test. I was then directed to socially distanced lines to get paired with a nurse to give me my first dose of the vaccine. I was given some pamphlets on the Pfizer vaccine to read up on background information on the company and study trials and was repeatedly asked if I was allergic to any of the ingredients to the vaccine so they could immediately stop me from receiving it just in case I was. I appreciated that I was treated with intense care, and I hope that many vaccinate sites are like this. It’s already hard enough for some people to get vaccinated, but seeing a smile on a nurse’s face can make someone so much calmer.

I had a nurse who had fifty years of hospital experience under her belt. She distracted me by complimenting me on my name, and also thanked me for choosing to be vaccinated. To tell you all the truth, I closed my eyes when getting the shot. She told me to take a breath and to relax, and a second later a band-aid was being placed on my arm. I didn’t feel it at all, and even had to ask her “That’s it?” just to make sure.

She thanked me again and told me to wait for fifteen minutes in case I had any kind of allergic reaction to the vaccination. I did not, and I was already posting my vaccination card on social media to let everyone know that I’m doing my part to help things go back to normal. For the first vaccination, the only symptoms I had were a sore arm 24 hours and some hot flashes. Even with the extremely bi-polar weather in PA, it felt like summer in my dorm room because my body felt so hot. It could’ve also been a fever, but it broke quickly and I didn’t have any other symptoms. I got my second vaccination on April 23rd, exactly three weeks after my first. The process of getting my second dose was exactly like my first, except for the fact that I was re-directed to another part of the facility that was used just for second doses. I had another nice woman who had a lot of experience as a nurse, who also made a comment on my name weirdly as she filled out my vaccination card. It seems like people in Lancaster don’t meet a lot of Gyana’s.

I closed my eyes again when she took out the shot, but with a bit of a delay. My eyes caught sight of the needle and as someone who is extremely scared of needles, I started to panic a little. But I had to remind myself that I was an adult, and I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of such a nice nurse by being afraid of a vaccine. I also reminded myself that this vaccine was for my own safety, so it was necessary to get it. I waited another fifteen minutes, and then I was done. Fully vaccinated. The second dose was much worse than the first. I had soreness in the arm, a cough, and a fever that pretty much ruined me for 2-3 days. I couldn’t go to my classes because of how weak I felt, but I made sure to drink a lot of water and to eat as much as my body would let me have some energy. And soon enough, everything was back to normal. I prefer that little fever over a positive COVID test any day.