4/30/2021
Opinion | My Coronavirus Vaccine, a Love Story - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/opinion/sunday/covid-vaccine.html
Opinion
My Vaccine, a Love Story I spent my life covering wars, but this battle was fought at home.
By Rod Nordland Mr. Nordland has worked as a foreign correspondent in more than 150 countries and has been variously posted in Bangkok, Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo, Rome, Sarajevo, San Salvador, Islamabad, London and Kabul. March 2, 2021
I’m not usually given to bursting into tears in public, but Saturday, Jan. 16, was an exception. I was getting my Covid-19 vaccination in Queens when it happened. A friendly physician, who identified herself only as Dr. Burke, approached me to make sure I was OK. I told her I was just overwhelmed with emotion. “It’s OK,” she said. “A lot of people are crying here today.” I’ve spent most of my 50 years in journalism as a war correspondent; when the pandemic hit, I couldn’t help but see the coronavirus pandemic in familiar terms. Countries around the world were transformed into battlefields. Like most of us, I have known people who have died of the virus. This has made the pandemic very different from other wars I’ve covered, which is nearly all of them since Cambodia in 1979. In other wars I had an out: I could always leave and go back home. That, of course, isn’t an option in a pandemic; the front lines in the fight against the virus are everywhere, and we are nearly all on them. With no home leave, so to speak, I felt bereft of home in a way more profound than during any field assignment I had been on before. As someone who has spent most of his career on farther shores, I have found this past year particularly hard to bear. I was abroad at home, and never had I felt so isolated and alone.
OPINION CONVERSATION
Questions surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine and its rollout. What can I do once I'm vaccinated? Tara Haelle, a science journalist, argues that even after you're vaccinated, "you will need to do your own risk assessment." How can I protect myself from new variants of the virus? Abraar Karan, an internal medicine physician, says we should stick with fundamental precautions that prevent infection. What can I do while my children are still unvaccinated? David Leonhardt writes about the difficult safety calculations families will face. When can we declare the pandemic over? Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics, writes that some danger will still exist when things return to “normal.”
My litany of collateral damages will sound familiar: the weeks of quarantines, the unattended weddings and funerals, the skipped Labor Day family barbecue. And forget about graduations and plain old birthday parties; I haven’t seen my three children, all of whom live in Europe, for most of a year. Thanksgiving, normally an affair for 30 or 40 extended family members, was off limits. I found our canceled Christmas to be particularly wrenching. Our family event, hosted by my sister Darlene, typically boasts 50 place settings. This year I was not invited, of course; I was heartbroken over that till I quickly realized that if I had been called upon to attend, I could not have gone. Outside of her immediate household of six family members, most of us dialed in by Zoom or FaceTime. That way we all stayed safe, if a bit sad.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/opinion/sunday/covid-vaccine.html
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