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My personal experience after getting the vaccination:


Hi Gabe,

Let me share my personal experience after getting my first and second mRNA shots.

I would like to point out that I am only 57 years old and - apart from smoking a bit too much over the last 7 years I don't see myself as being at risk to take a vaccine like that or, at that matter, to fall severly ill to the point that I would have to be hospitalized.

Now, that is what I thought about myself before taking the vaccine, but let's face it, there is no guarantee for this, of course.

The age group of the actual patients is falling right now, most of them are between 40 and 60 - so, how could I be that sure that I wouldn't end up in a hospital?

The actual pandemic is a pandemic among the non-vaccinated people, they say...

What is the difference of this vaccination to others we have taken before?

Compared to other vaccinations like the one you can get every fall against the flue they say that the side effects are quite more frequent and a bit harder. Many other vaccinations we are used taking even as babies or as children or teenagers don't affect at all - so it is a bit different with this one...;)

Signing in online for the vaccination

As I said I signed in online to get my vaccination as soon as I saw online that our age group was admitted.
Because the vaccination center in my hometown was fully booked I took the effort to go to Zürich instead.

Everyone who registers with the online vaccination tool of my Kanton Zürich (district) can choose one of the next available appointments. So you are free to book these two dates whenever it suits you.

What happened after the first shot?

As predicted, my upper arm started to hurt quite a bit. It feels like a minor cramp.
But it was not hurting that much or kept me too uncomfortable that I could not continue with my Cello exercises.
Everything was fine and alright. No fever, no further side effects.

And what happened after taking the second shot?

I got the shot at four o'clock in the afternoon. They begged us all to stay seated for 15 minutes right after the shot.
They want to make sure that no one suffers from an allergic reaction which can happen very rarely. In this case, the staff would interfere immediately with a suitable medicine and take care of you on the spot. They circulate the crowd and have a keen eye on everyone who would show any signs of feeling uncomfortable.

I went back home and my twin came over for dinner and afterward I listened to a radio podcast and soon after that fell asleep...;)
I woke up about two hours later. I suddenly felt cold and was slightly shivering. Now that is a clear sign of fever.
And then a headache came up.
I went to bed and could not sleep until I decided at one o'clock in the morning to take some painkilling pills that reduce the fever too. I took two at a time which I very rarely do.
This is what my doctor had recommended a few years back when I got a flue and suffered from fever up to 39,5 ° over the time of 4 days. You can take all the usual pills and medicines after being vaccinated or after getting infected with the Coronavirus, by the way.
Soon after that, I fell asleep again. The fever fell over the last couple of hours and I had to get up and change clothes and bedsheets two times.
The next morning I felt better but was very tired. Fortunately for me, I did not have to go to work.
A day later I was still a bit exhausted but there was no fever anymore.

Honestly, when the fever and headache started, on top of the cramp-feeling in my upper arm, I was slightly frightened of what would come next...;) Taking the pills helped me and I was not looking out for someone to take care of me - as we guys tend to avoid that, don't you too?

They say that the side effects are stronger after the second shot.
I saw it as a clear sign that my immune system was ready to fight the mRNA vaccine and would help me to get my body trained in future battles should the virus try to infect me again:).

And how am I feeling now after being fully vaccinated?

If you ask me, I am much relieved and happy to be fully vaccinated since mid-July and I am feeling much more at ease and relaxed when I meet up with people privately or for business, or at my workplace.

I was never too much worried about my health should I get the disease because I have no health problems like too much weight, difficulties with my heart, cancer (as far as I know), diabetes, transplanted organs, or medication that would diminish my immune system’s capabilities either.

But I am a smoker, I admit that…;)

On top of being protected now for a year or so from getting sevearly ill after an infection I guess I contributed to the well-being of other people around me - in the first place the elderly in my own family that I meet up with regularly. But also many other people that I now hope would not get the disease from me (or if so then only to a minor degree).

How do you get the disease:
In one go or by meeting one particularly contageous person in a train for instance or at the dancing club and such?

Yes, that can happen.
In dancing clubs and when you go to a concert a super spreading event might happen...
Meanwhile you need a certificate here whenever you would like to go out and visit a club or a football match or a concert and things like that.
They can see now that it works - no further superspreading events anymore there.

You know:
You might get the virus on multiple occasions in small dosage - and they found out that most of the people are not falling ill even if contaminated with a minor virus load right then and there.

But over time and especially when you don't keep your distance, don't wash your hands, don't open your windows, your immune system has to fight against a too high virus-load in your body at a time. So it may fail to combat this accumulated viruses - and only then the disease breaks out.

So whoever does not care at all about regulations like masks and such runs a much higher risk to fall ill with Corona and on top of that does most probably infect others as well.

The thing with those who show no signs and symptoms despite being infected and contageious:

You are infectous even before you become aware of falling ill. They say being infectous before falling ill goes back between one and 5 days…

And then some people show no signs of the disease but are contagious nonetheless.

A most dreadful case

In one case a very dedicated nurse in a home for the elderly worked so hard and dedicated day and night while many of her colleages had to stay home because of Corona.

Without knowing it, she was spreading the disease, as they later found out by a very accurate study of each person’s viruses – they could trace 30 of the patients illnesses to the virus this nurse had in her body and had not known it… too bad!
This happened in November and December 2020.

Unfortunately, what they had had in mind right after finding the first infected inhabitants and the authority wrote in an email to the home for elderly: you should test all the staff members and all the inhabitants in this institution at once and send all those home or isolate the patients that are infected!

Unfortunately, this was not carried out for about for weeks due to not available resources at the time… and led to many deaths untill the end of January 2021 in this institution.

Are you better off after being fully vaccinated instead of going through the disease?

Yes, you are.
They made studies: non-vaccinated people run 80 times higher risk than vaccinated people to end up at the hospital or even have to seek help in an emergency ward.
Now that number is a statistical average, I know. So it varies individually, of course.

But nevertheless:
You do good work to prevent the hospitals from too many patients when you decide to take the vaccine.

Of course, people can behave cautiously in other ways too. They can stay back from going out too much, they can limit their contacts, they can work in home-office which my younger brother is doing now for more than a year.

As long as the vaccines were not yet available all that was the only thing we could do to prevent from infecting other people...

But even if I repeat myself:

-> I still hope that more and more people will decide on their own will to go and take the vaccination, despite some doubts.

Because: 
There is no doubt about the fact that they can reign in the case numbers better the higher the percentage in a population is in terms of people who are fully vaccinated...

So, this is my attempt to convince one or two more people, hopefully, to put aside some worries and go and get the vaccine.

Delta is twice as virulent as the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Variant - so each vaccination contributes a bit to our well-being and our society and social life.

Have a good day now, all of you, and stay healthy!
Best wishes

Urs

P.s:
Our correspondent in Moscow who came back in spring 2021 for his retirement made some inquiries before getting vaccinated with Sputnik.
Some doctors he already knew confirmed that it is a good and valuable vaccination – thanks to all the specialists and scientists who took care of its proper development and testing out in many series.

I read that Sputnik is sold to many other countries, yes, but that it is not too popular in Russia…;)

Do you know why?