I live in Orange County, Florida, which as it turns out is relatively enlightened compared to most of the other Florida counties. An example is the disbursement of corona virus vaccines. Orange County set up a relatively organized system for its at-risk citizens to create an appointment to receive the two shots. Other counties decided it would be an ad-hoc first come, first serve, and those were disasters with many at-risk citizens camped out in long lines waiting to sign up at certain respective locations. Here in Orange, my wife and I got an email alerts from OCAlert (Orange County Alert) on 28 December about the availability of the vaccines and to create an appointment as soon as possible. I, along with my wife, signed up by the morning of 29 December. Both of us will get our first shots this coming 9 January (a week from today) and the second on 6 February. As it turns out, all of those allocated doses for Orange County were spoken for within 24 hours.

With reports now saying that the more infectious variant of the corona virus has been circulating since October 2020, our concerns with regards to mask wearing and social distancing are at an even higher level. That makes the vaccines even more vital. The two of us are in the high-risk category, which explains why we got the OCAlert emails; as it turns out not everyone got them, just the identified high-risk Orange County citizens. Even after we get our shots, we’re still going to responsibly practice mask wearing and social distancing, as well as minimizing our travel away from home. Moderna’s 94.5% efficacy is not 100%, and anything is still possible, especially without proper diligence.