By TREVIN BRANDT
Staff Writer
The Tulare World Ag Expo Center has been giving out free Pfizer covid-19 vaccinations for a couple months. Originally, it was limited to people who qualify through essential work qualifications such as medical work or frontline work, or people who qualify through the age threshold of 75 and over. Since January, the qualifications have become more loose as the vaccine has been given to the essential people, and now in the state of california, anyone over the age of 50 is able to be vaccinated. Starting April 15th, anyone over the age of 16 will qualify for the vaccination. In the central valley, due to the excess of vaccines, the Tulare Expo Center has been allowing anyone over the age of 16 with photo ID access to the vaccine.
I was able to get my first dose of the vaccine on March 20th. The first dose is supposed to get your body ready for the second dose, which houses most of the medicine that defends against covid-19. When I arrived at the vaccination site, I was brought through multiple checkpoints, where they informed me to get all necessary documents out and ready. It took about an hour of waiting in a car line (which is surprising, considering the high amount of cars waiting), but eventually, I made it to the front, where they gave me the shot through my car window. I was not expecting to get it in this manner, but I think this is what helps make the line move along as quickly as it does. After getting the vaccine, you are instructed to wait in your car for 15 minutes, to make sure you don’t experience any allergic reactions. During this time, the brave volunteers help you schedule your appointment for your second dose, which is supposed to happen a minimum of 3 weeks after your first dose. After this, you are free to go. Many people have voiced their experiences of having a fever or a mild reaction to the vaccine beyond soreness. I was surprised to have not experienced this considering young people usually have a worse reaction to it than older people. The worst that happened was that my arm was sore for a couple days, but that is to be expected.
I received my second dose last weekend on April 10th. Surprisingly, I only had to wait about 5 minutes in line. There were very few cars in line compared to my first dose. When I received my first dose, the volunteers gave me a vaccination card that they instructed me to bring during my second appointment. I brought that and was vaccinated in a breeze. Again, I only experienced soreness in my arm for a couple days, and experienced no other reaction to the vaccine. 2 weeks after receiving the second dose, you are immune to the virus. The CDC is predicting immunity will last about six months. It is expected that a booster vaccine may have to be administered to extend the immunity. Nonetheless, Tulare has already seen the positive effects of the vaccination process considering that last week Tulare County moved from the red tier to the orange tier. We are only one tier away from the least restrictive tier: the yellow tier. Gavin Newsom is confident in possibly getting rid of the tier system in california by the summer, and only enforcing social distancing and mask wearing.
I highly encourage that everyone gets vaccinated if they are comfortable doing so. It will help turn covid-19 from a pandemic into an epidemic which will bring our way of living back to a state of normalcy.