Vaccine Received

This morning as I finished my shift on labor and delivery, I got in line for my second Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine. As we were rolling up our sleeves for the shot, I joked with my coworker that after this, I was giving up wet-markets for good. One of the nurses administering the shot, said half-seriously, “come-on, what’s wrong with wet markets?!”. It struck me, that even during the worst pandemic of my lifetime, there are a lot of people who don’t know of, or don’t believe, the real risk of pandemics coming from current livestock containment practices. I’m mostly through a very interesting book by Michael Greger, How To Survive A Pandemic. He discusses a history of scourges of humankind and shows how many of them are linked to our close interactions with animals for food. Due to our modern-day practices of how big companies raise chickens, the likelihood of another deadly bird influenza virus jumping the species barrier and sweeping through our population is high. In the book and on his website (www.nutritionfacts.org), he offers good advice how we can maximize our health through diet and other lifestyle changes to survive our current pandemic. It’s heavy stuff to read and think about, especially these days, but it’s good advice for us today, as well as tomorrow.