no side effects so far from my second Moderna.

fingers crossed.

Don’t know how old u are but us older folks seem not to get side effects

drummerboy said:

no side effects so far from my second Moderna.

fingers crossed.

 What time did you get the shot?

sbenois said:

drummerboy said:

no side effects so far from my second Moderna.

fingers crossed.

 What time did you get the shot?

 Oh you got it yesterday?  You're golden at this point.

annielou said:

Don’t know how old u are but us older folks seem not to get side effects

 An "older" (late 60s/early 70s) friend of mine had significant side effects - like bad flu, but only for a day or two.

sbenois said:

sbenois said:

drummerboy said:

no side effects so far from my second Moderna.

fingers crossed.

 What time did you get the shot?

 Oh you got it yesterday?  You're golden at this point.

 yeah, it's been 30 hours so far. I feel fine.

How to Get Vaccinated at a Site in Orange

Elected officials visit St. Matthew Credits: Precious OsagiBy TAPINTO EAST ORANGE/ORANGE STAFFMarch 25, 2021 at 11:47 PM

ORANGE/EAST ORANGE, NJ — Last week, TAP reported on the Governor and other elected officials touring a vaccination site right here in Orange. The site is located at St. Matthew AME Church on Oakwood Avenue. The site is servicing residents from East Orange, Orange, and Irvington. To make an appointment, call 973-678-1217 or email stmattserves@stmatthewame.org.

According to the City of East Orange, you will be asked to "provide your name, contact information and city residency. Your name will be forwarded to the Department of Health Call Center, and they will call you with a confirmation of your appointment."

They are not accepting walk-ins.

Not sure if today was the first day Rite Aid in Irvington was doing Covid shots -- They didn't seem to be prepared. First they didn't have the forms (I think our long wait may have been due to them printing it out on their low-ink printer). When I asked which vaccine I was getting, I was told it would be on the form that was in the prescription bag (so, I'm not sure they even knew?). It said Moderna.

They didn't mention anything about a second shot/appointment... so I'm hoping it's automated and I'll get an email soon...

My arm is quite sore now, and I'm a bit complainy...

You may need to schedule the second shot with them.  A friend of a friend got their first shot at a pharmacy in a different State and was told that they would not be administering the second shot to her.  Since most places are administering second shots only to people who have received their first shot from them, scheduling a second shot elsewhere was problematic.  I don't know how this resolved itself.  I will try to find out and post here.

Fortunately, I did just receive an automated email from Rite Aid this morning informing me of my second appointment (scheduled for the same location in about 4 weeks).

Good to hear.  I just checked with my friend.  Her friend did receive a follow-up call from the pharmacy scheduling her for her second dose.  Good news all around.

One bit of a mystery is that while more and more people are vaccinated or have had past covid infections, the daily new cases still remain fairly high.  The Governor and health officials can speculate, but they do not really know the answer.    Covid remains a tricky elusive dangerous virus.

We also need to think about the rest of the world and how we will help vaccinate them.   Variants can spread in large unvaccinated populations.    While we can count cases and deaths, the long-term effects of heart and lung and other illnesses are still mostly uncounted.   And to further make the problem even more complex, Redfield says the virus probably escaped from a lab, but Fauci says it did not.   

My way of looking at life on earth is that we as people live in a biological soup.  And we are part of the soup.  Viruses have probably been around as long as there has been life on earth.  Most parts of the soup we get along with fine and they are often helpful in a symbiotic way.   But there are some "bad boy" parts of the soup and we need to stop them from doing harm.  

I sometimes go off on tangents.  

RobertRoe said:

One bit of a mystery is that while more and more people are vaccinated or have had past covid infections, the daily new cases still remain fairly high.  The Governor and health officials can speculate, but they do not really know the answer.    Covid remains a tricky elusive dangerous virus.

We also need to think about the rest of the world and how we will help vaccinate them.   Variants can spread in large unvaccinated populations.  

It isn't well-received but the fact remains that being vaccinated does not mean you are not going to be infected and test positive. Two of Ms. bikefixed's colleagues are dealing with COVID infections they both contracted more than a month after they completed their vaccination & the approximate 2-week waiting period. They were both moderately sick but neither needed hospitalization. Reducing the need for hospitalization/serious illness is one of those stats they tout about the vaccines & their efficacy. That's good but yeah, we can still contract COVID after vaccination, even the "original" strain.

Are these areas that persist in showing high infection rates any different in terms of their masking habits and openness? I don't know. I guess I am hoping the daily death rate for NJ does not rise like the daily case rate. The 7-day death average was in the 40s from April 1, 2020 through mid-June, 2020. It is still in the 30s after having come back down from that post-Thanksgiving surge and let us hope it stays there. We've been doing a decent job stopping the deaths in spite of our case rate rising back towards the post-holiday period's rates.

An observation about how a few miles produces a noticable difference in mask wearing.  I usually take my dog to the Rez dog park but occasionally go to the one in Echo Lake Park, which for me is maybe five minutes more on the road.  At the Rez, mask wearing is nearly 100%.  Today at Echo Lake I'd say maybe 1 in 10 people at most was masked.  I know I know casual outdoor contact is pretty safe but both parks have rules that you should be masked.  It' quite a contrast.  And being a warm weekend day, there were a lot of people there.

All one has to do is take a walk through my neighborhood and see how few people are wearing face coverings to understand why the disease is still spreading in Maplewood.  I see people I know are not members of the same household walking together in close proximity chatting away, without any of them wearing a face covering.  I see people walking dogs, standing on the sidewalk chatting, skateboarding down the middle of the street.  None of them wearing a face covering.  Recently I asked an older man who walked towards me face-coverless to please put on his face covering as he approached me on a narrow sidewalk where it was not possible for me to step into the street or on someone's lawn or driveway to maintain social distance.  He replied that he had read numerous studies/statistics that proved you could not contract COVID when you were outside.  This attitude/lack of knowledge is far from unique.  Statistics do show that there has been an alarming increase in the number of COVID cases in Maplewood among minors.  This is an alarming trend with the schools getting ready to open to older children.  In addition to vaccines, which do help control spread, we need to better educate our residents on the need to wear face coverings, maintain social distancing, and avoid large gatherings.  Don't get me started on the number of contractors and town employees I see working outside within a few inches of the sidewalk who are not wearing face coverings and don't even have them with them or the number of people I see standing in doorways or on street corners while they are smoking a cigarette.  While you can argue that my Maplewood neighborhood is relatively sparsely populated with few people walking on the street most of the time, on a recent drive through NYC, I saw numerous people walking about with no face covering in sight.   It has been over a year, so many deaths, so many long haulers and still far too few treating the pandemic seriously.

joan_crystal said:

All one has to do is take a walk through my neighborhood and see how few people are wearing face coverings to understand why the disease is still spreading in Maplewood.  

I hadn't checked the statistics for South Orange or Maplewood in quite a while. Your post and bub's post prompted me to look at the numbers and between March 26 and March 27 there were  7 new cases in Maplewood and 9 in South Orange. My recollection is that those numbers are as high as during the worst months in 2020. 

https://essexcountynj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/essex-county-coronavirus-cases-march-27.pdf

eta - Essex Co. had 423 new cases. 

"Essex County is at an extremely high risk level for Covid-19 infections.

The average number of new cases in Essex County reached 423 yesterday, a 3 percent increase from the day before. Since January of last year, at least 1 in 10 people who live in Essex County have been infected, and at least 1 in 288 have died."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-cases-deaths-tracker.html

Curious 

Did anyone expecting 2nd shot symptoms try a couple of preemptive Tylenol before the vaccination?

rcarter31 said:

Curious 

Did anyone expecting 2nd shot symptoms try a couple of preemptive Tylenol before the vaccination?

EdwardAlbert said:

 

 my sister, who is a nurse, cautioned against taking analgesics beforehand because it might possibly dampen the effects of the vaccine.

rcarter31 said:

Curious 

Did anyone expecting 2nd shot symptoms try a couple of preemptive Tylenol before the vaccination?

 Not a good idea because it can impact the working of the immune system.  Not really necessary either in my case and in the case of many people I know.  Strong recommendation is to NOT do this.  It is fine to have a bottle of such medication handy in case you develop significant fever, chills, body aches and the like.  What seems to work is being well hydrated before the shot and for a day or so following the inoculation.  

The trend continues: On Friday, roughly 1,200 slots for school and government workers this week appeared on the Essex County site. Today was filled by the end of the weekend, and now only 148 slots remain across Wednesday and Thursday.

cramer said:

I hadn't checked the statistics for South Orange or Maplewood in quite a while. Your post and bub's post prompted me to look at the numbers and between March 26 and March 27 there were  7 new cases in Maplewood and 9 in South Orange. My recollection is that those numbers are as high as during the worst months in 2020. 

https://essexcountynj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/essex-county-coronavirus-cases-march-27.pdf

eta - Essex Co. had 423 new cases. 

"Essex County is at an extremely high risk level for Covid-19 infections.

The average number of new cases in Essex County reached 423 yesterday, a 3 percent increase from the day before. Since January of last year, at least 1 in 10 people who live in Essex County have been infected, and at least 1 in 288 have died."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-cases-deaths-tracker.html

I skimmed the links. It was pretty disheartening but what percentage of us in South Orange and Maplewood have been vaccinated?. As well what percentage of Essex County is vaccinated? How do SOMAs numbers compare to other towns? Maybe the percentage of vaccinations is too small to make a significant impact. 

I'm only encountering people in public places that require masking, supermarket, Home Depot, the bank so I'm not seeing people without masks. Even going to their cars in parking lots. 

I believe that about14% of Americans have been completely vaccinated so until we see at least 50% we'll be in the "soup" to borrow a bit from @RobertRoe 's analogy.

25% vaccinated. I would have hoped that would make a bigger difference.

Morganna said:

25% vaccinated. I would have hoped that would make a bigger difference.

Keep in mind that only 14 percent of the county is 65 or older. Even with vaccines available for all the frontline occupations and medical conditions, that's still a lot of people who haven't been eligible yet.  

Pfizer just announced that its vaccine is 100% effective in kids ages 12-15. It has to be approved by the the FDA. This is big - it would mean that kids could be vaccinated before going back to school in the fall. 

Yesterday, McGreevey said it's a race between the vaccines and the variants. The president of University Hospital in Newark was on Morning Joe and said the same thing. He said that the variants are stronger and are causing more hospitalizations, mainly among young people. He said that only 6% of the population in Newark has been fully vaccinated compared to 16% statewide, and hopes that the new FEMA megacenter in Newark will help close the gap. 

Eligibility age goes down to 55+ on April 5th.

According to a robocall from this afternoon, Essex County got a supply of J and J vaccine which they will administer beginning April 7  - appts will be available beginning tonight at 9pm at Essexcovid.org.