By way of background, I work in a five-person office. Four of us were vaccinated; one is a confirmed anti-vaxxer. All of us caught it. The anti-vaxxer was diagnosed last, although in hindsight he says that he may have been sick for several days and just in denial. He also has diabetes and emphysema. Unsurprisingly, he landed in the hospital. Our office also has a young fellow only 19 years old, fully vaccinated, with no discernable risk factors, who also landed in the hospital. The rest of us had only mild cases.
For me, my nose ran like a faucet. The amount of Kleenex I used in the first few days was extraordinary. Coughing and sneezing was less frequent that with a cold, but deeper -- terrifyingly deep. I had sporadic, low-grade fevers, especially at night, never above 100.2. I also had poor appetite, general fatigue, and insomnia. The insomnia was the worst part of it. I did not lose my sense of smell or taste. This lasted about a week. I attempted to work from home, but my energy was extremely limited. The next week my symptoms resolved except an about-to-sneeze feeling in my nose and a little post-nasal drip. But my energy was extremely limited. Just walking around the block wiped me out. My ability to focus on work was quite limited. The following week I was well enough to go into work, but was still limited in how long I could focus before getting light-headed or brain fog and having to take a nap. Since then it has been making up for lost time.
Infected people are supposed to quarantine for ten days from first symptom. That means no shopping. I learned to use Insta-Cart, and drive-up windows. Three things I greatly came to appreciate -- pulse oximeters (my oxygen was fine), Kleenex with lotion (the difference is extraordinary given how often I was blowing my nose), and doing my own shopping.
So, thoughts on that.
First of all, vaccines are far from perfect. Four out of five people at the office were fully vaccinated, but all of us got sick. I got the Pfizer vaccine. It appears that Pfizer 47% effective at preventing infection five months out. That means, even if we start giving boosters at six months, there will be significant numbers of breakthrough infections before then. I personally got my first shot in April and my second on May 8. That means I was considered fully vaccinated two weeks later, on May 22. I felt sick enough to self-test on Sunday, September 26 and was probably contagious at least two days earlier. So I was about four months out from the "fully vaxxed" date and probably about five months out from my first shot.
Second, this is not the same as saying that vaccines are worthless. My boss, a Republican but not an anti-vaxxer, concluded that vaccines are worthless at stopping the spread of COVID and merely mitigate its severity. Yet he, himself, enrolled in a COVID study in order to get the vaccine early was was told that he was only their fifth breakthrough infection (his wife was the sixth), and their first in months. He may very well be the beginning of a wave. But the vaccine was apparently quite effective for a number of months at least.
Third, while people complain about the disruptions caused by mitigation efforts, getting the disease is also disruptive. Five out of five people in our office were infected and got sick. Granted, one stayed at his post for almost a week before giving out, and the next week some of us started coming back, at a highly reduced rate of efficiency, and without seeing clients. But the disruption was absolutely real. If everyone had gotten the disease at different times, the disruption would have been a lot less.
And finally, vaccines cannot do it alone. We need much more rapid, abundant testing, and an effective treatment.
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