15 months into the new world and the end is still not in sight. There is not a clear, linear march of progress but then there never is…that’s a fictional rhetoric that fails to describe so many things. The onward march of science and humanity as we grow ever greater….not so much. A myth, a fiction. Life and people are always a little messy. Reality is very different to the rinse and repeat of video games.

The news this week is that the age for the AstroZeneca vaccine has been raised to 60. As an aside, I’m looking forward to 60 and bought a couple of magnums of wine upon release a few years ago in preparation. My 60th is still several years off but aged, mature wine is much, much cheaper if it is bought young :-) Assuming I am still drinking wine at 60. I’ve cut back on my wine consumption as I tend to find 2 glasses of red wine in the evening eg over dinner, is enough to disrupt my sleep and I sleep poorly…and thus too, my partner.

My partner has been experimenting with non alcoholic wines and liking them whereas I’m drinking one glass of alcoholic red on some nights and adding argon gas to the bottle which manages to preserve it quite well for some weeks. I’m sorta liking this approach as I can enjoy a single bottle over a week or two. I’m drinking less wine and buying less wine. So far so good. Thankfully whisky doesn’t affect my sleep…which is also curious.

Anyways, I am in my 50s, I won’t say exactly though that’s more to reduce the data I’m giving spammers than any concern about sharing my age with folk. I have no problems with oversharing in person :) When vaccines were first announced, I was looking at first injection around July/August then there were a few changes, more options, and the timetable was brought forward.

I had my first jab of the AstroZeneca 18 days ago with no side effects whatsoever. I timed it well, got a bus to the main Homebush hub and within 10 minutes of getting off the bus, I was through, injected, and sitting in the observation room. Early afternoon on a weekday seems like a quiet time to go, and indeed staff commented that the busiest time was probably late afternoon. I gather the key period for concern is between 4 days and 30 so I’m about halfway through but I’m not anticipating any drama but for some friends it’s an interesting time ahead. My second injection will be late August and I gather that has even less potential side affects.

With that said, I’m a middle aged white male who seems to have been lucky so far in terms of avoiding long term issues etc. so I’m not the most representative of samples.