How the covid vaccine almost killed me

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So, I was talking on the phone with a friend the other day and she said she just got covid, and I realized that I knew a few other people who’d had covid recently, and this season’s version of the vaccine had come out. I scheduled an appointment at the doctor’s office the next day for covid and flu shots. But when I got there, all they had was the flu shot—the covid shots hadn’t come in yet. The nurse recommended I try doing it through a pharmacy. I kinda forgot about it but then a couple days later I remembered. I went on the CVS website and it was really easy to schedule . . . actually they had an appointment in 20 minutes on West 57 St in midtown. (Amusingly enough, when I typed in my location, it gave the closest locations as some places in New Jersey—I guess they were measuring as-the-crow-flies distance rather than travel time.) 20 minutes doesn’t leave much margin of error so I threw on my shoes, grabbed my bike, zipped over to the subway, went down to 59 St, and biked over to the corner where the CVS was . . . I wasn’t sure which way to go and I couldn’t see any street numbers so I took a guess and turned left, then I saw the street numbers were too low . . . I was in a real hurry now, I didn’t want to get there too late and have them retract my appointment, also I had to return home in about 40 minutes, so I decided to turn around right there in the middle of the block. As I was making that U-turn I slowed down to find a break in the traffic going the other direction and I saw a city bus barreling right at me! Fortunately there was some space in the cars so I could get into the traffic and I didn’t get run over.

Everything else went well. I got the shot and I got home in time for my 4pm meeting. But I almost got run over by a bus (entirely my fault, not the bus driver’s at all). So that’s my story: the vaccine almost killed me.

I’m reminded of the principle that the most dangerous part of a flight is the ride to the airport.

29 thoughts on “How the covid vaccine almost killed me”

  1. So, a good causal model is not enough. Without the mechanism, we can isolate the cause without understanding its irrelevance to the vaccine’s effect. I wonder just how far this multidimensional view of “cause” goes down the rabbit hole.

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  3. There is a famous literary version of trying to avoid danger and doing exactly the wrong thing: John O’Hara’s “Appointment in Samarra”. It is even more famous than the source of O’Hara’s work, W. Somerset Maugham’s 1933 play “Sheppey” which has the line spoken by Death,

    “I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

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    • And the source of Maugham’s version was a French version of Arabic versions of this story from the Talmud (I am told):

      ”Death was sad. He said to him: Why are you sad? He said to him: They are asking me to take the lives of these two Cushites who are sitting here. Solomon … sent them to the district of Luz, …
      The following day, Solomon saw that the Angel of Death was happy. He said to him: Why are you happy? He replied: In the place that they asked me to take them, there you sent them.”

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    • I never really understood the thinking in this story. Can’t Death find you no matter where you are? It’s not like there’s a reasonable strategy of trying to hide from it by moving around.
      Same with the cliche of playing a game of chess against Death. Isn’t it likely to be a much better chess-player than you are? Why would anyone not a super-grandmaster think they would be a better player? (I could sort of understand a few of those thinking they had a chance to beat gods, some of them do have that ego – but not anyone who was of lesser skill).

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      • Seth:

        I think that’s exactly the point of the story, that Death will find you no matter where you are. But it’s not a surprise that people will try to cheat Death: it might be unlikely that you can do it, but perhaps Death will be distracted with other business at the time and not bother to track you down.

        As for that game of chess with Death: it’s been many decades since I’ve seen The Seventh Seal, but my recollection is that (a) Death wins the game, and (b) the knight playing against Death really had no choice. Which, again, is kind of the point: Death comes to us all, but we still struggle against it. Here I am writing book after book in my own personal doomed bid for immortality.

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        • Andrew: I always took the point to be some sort of cheap-irony twist-ending – that trying to escape backfired. Not that it made no difference, but that it was worse. How can Death “not bother to track you down”? This is the part I have trouble with. It must always know where you are, because so many people die alone in the wilderness. And if you can talk to it, and it answers in comprehensible language, I’d think people would have a pretty good idea of its abilities (or at least what it claims as abilities – and people would definitely test).

          Maybe I should watch the Seventh Seal, I actually haven’t. IMDB:

          “In the 14th Century, Swedish knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) returns home after the Crusades and heads to his castle where he left his wife Karin (Inga Landre) ten years prior. His squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), prays every morning, but the knight has lost his faith. Antonius has seen so much death and suffering in the world, especially how the Black Plague ravages across Europe. Death personified (Bengt Ekerot) comes to claim the Antonius and Jons, but the knight convinces him to play a game of chess for their souls. If Antonius wins, Death will go on his way, and if Death wins, the knight will accept his fate. Death tells him that he never loses. The chess game begins.”

          Hmm … the Internet is great: https://imsdb.com/scripts/Seventh-Seal,-The.html

          DEATH
          Yes, in fact I’m quite a good chess player.

          KNIGHT
          But you can’t be better than I am.

          [This is the point where my suspension of disbelief would be severely strained. The Knight actually comes across to me as extremely deluded.]

        • Seth responding to Andrew:

          That scene is based on a medieval artwork in a small church north of Stockholm: ”Death plays chess”, with a decoration reading ”I play you into checkmate.”

          The theological point is this:

          1. You cannot escape death.

          2. If you can’t escape death, you can’t escape God’s judgement.

          3. If you can’t escape God’s judgement, you better behave (or else)!

          So I think Mr Bergman’s script had the intended effect: the knight IS deluded.

        • Anon:

          From the link: “The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 2,000 US UFC/MMA/Sports fans. The data was collected between 19.11.2025 – 21.11.2025.” So the headline of the article isn’t consistent with the article’s content.

  8. “I haven’t faced death. I’ve cheated death. I’ve tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.” — James Tiberius Kirk, Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

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