By Noralyn Dudt
About three weeks
ago on Dec. 15th, 2022, I lost my bragging rights on board the
Viking Jupiter along the coast of Puerto Montt in Chile. That was my 15th
day on the cruise and I tested positive for the coronavirus, finally. I was asymptomatic (no symptoms) so, of
course it came as a surprise. I would have never known had it not for the Viking protocol to conduct PCR tests
on all 900 passengers and 400 crew
members every morning. For two years I have been sort of bragging with
"humility" that the corona
would never be able to get past my immune system. I have been healthy, didn't
have underlying conditions and best of all I have had the two doses of the
mRNA vaccines plus the three boosters
for the variants. Additionally, I have been wearing a mask in crowded and
closed-in places. I was very sure that I was forever shielded from the virus
and why shouldn't I have been entitled to some bragging rights? Those
bragging rights I lost, but some insight
I gained.
So, what does testing positive mean? Does it mean that the
vaccines were not effective? Does it mean that it's of no use to get vaccinated because we catch the virus
anyway ? Wrong. Studies show that when you get vaccinated and have the
boosters, you will less likely to get seriously sick and be hospitalized. There were about a hundred of us who tested
positive. As we have all been vaccinated,
no one got seriously ill especially among us who have received the
boosters. In fact, the majority of us didn't have any symptoms. Several said
they coughed and sneezed and others had mild headaches. But nothing of the sort
that would require emergency care and hospitalization.
The coronavirus is no longer a pandemic but it has not gone away,
and will never go away. As with the flu, the Corona is now endemic. Like the
flu, it will always be with us year after year. And as with the flu with new
strains that circulates season after season, and year after year, the corona
keeps emerging with new variants and
sub-variants.
When the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were first unveiled in December
2020, medical experts touted the benefits of this new technology, saying
formulations could easily be tweaked someday to match a quickly changing virus.
That day has finally come.
The highly-immune evasive Omicron XBB 1.5 variant is quickly
becoming dominant in the US. The XBB,
some studies suggest, is different from the original COVID strain from Wuhan,
China. It is not yet clear whether the XBB is more lethal than other variants
but its mutations enable it to evade antibodies from prior infection and
vaccines as well as monoclonal antibody
treatments.
The new booster is a bivalent vaccine which means it contains two
messenger RNA (mRNA) components of the coronavirus. Half of the vaccine targets the original
strain, and the other half targets the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariant lineages, which predicted to continue circulating in
the months ahead. I received the booster just two weeks before we got on the
cruise ship. I believe that the booster prevented me from experiencing
debilitating symptoms and from getting seriously sick.
A new study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health
emphasizes the continuing importance of vaccines and booster shots in
controlling infections from highly contagious new variants of Covid-19. The findings show that not only are
vaccinations and boosting important for lowering individual risk of
infection, they also aid in controlling COVID-19
within a larger population. With new COVID-19 variants and sub-variants driving
current surges in infections, being both vaccinated and boosted is critically
important, the researchers said. I believe that the cause for the surge of
cases on our cruise ship was the fact that so many people who got on board
willfully rejected getting the boosters beforehand. They believed that the two
vaccines were enough to ward infections. Not only did they endanger themselves
but also those who, like themselves, rejected taking the boosters, and the
staff who had not had the luxury to have the boosters. When I showed my
vaccination certificate that listed all of my vaccines and boosters to one of
the members of Viking's medical team, he said, "I envy you."
Indeed, I am grateful that the boosters have been there for the taking. When the boosters become
available in your particular area, consider yourself fortunate and get it. Not
only you will be in an enviable position but you will not end up in the
hospital if you get infected.
Noralyn Onto Dudt considers herself fortunate for having taken all the vaccines and boosters.
Having a passport ready in an emergency is one example of how modern technology may help with unexpected needs. In the case of a medical emergency, a crucial family crisis, or an unanticipated professional assignment, having an emergency passport on hand may help avoid bureaucratic delays. The benefits of an Emergency passport demonstrate that life sometimes goes differently than planned and that measures are taken to accommodate unforeseen events. This incident serves as a timely reminder that real people staff passport services and have the potential to save those in dire straits.
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