OPINION READER’S FORUM
Founded in 1906
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2020
A4
EDITOR’S DESK
It’s an important year to get a fl u shot
hile the Hermiston Her-
ald does not write
endorsements for political
candidates each election, I will offer
up an endorsement of
what doctors and public
health offi cials around
the world are begging
people to do this year:
Please get a fl u shot.
Jade
While we don’t have
McDowell
a vaccine for COVID-
NEWS EDITOR
19 yet, we can reduce
the number of people who sickened
by some strains of infl uenza, help-
ing reserve hospital beds and other
medical resources for coronavirus
outbreaks.
I will admit, I used to be a fl u vac-
cine skeptic.
Most vaccines seem like a
no-brainer. Before the polio vac-
cine, thousands of children in the
United States paralyzed or killed by
the poliomyelitis virus each year.
Now none are. Before the smallpox
vaccine, millions of people world-
wide died of the variola virus each
year. Now none do. It doesn’t take
an epidemiology degree to fi gure out
everyone should be getting one of
those.
But for me, the fl u shot always
seemed different. For one, while
other vaccines were a distant child-
hood memory, the fl u vaccine
required me to make the decision
each year to voluntarily get stabbed
with a needle again. And then, since
the fl u shot is not 100% effective,
W
Hermiston Herald, File
Greg Bonner, left, receives a fl u shot from Blue Mountain Community College nursing student
Dariann Scott during a drive-through vaccination clinic in 2019. Doctors are saying this year
is a particularly important year to get a fl u vaccine.
there was the chance that I could get
stabbed and still get sick.
Also, people I knew told convinc-
ing tales, swearing that they never
got the fl u shot and then the one year
they did, they immediately got sick,
so obviously it was the fl u shot that
made them sick.
This made for a rather impressive
argument when I didn’t think about
it too closely (which was all too con-
venient to do since I really don’t like
needles).
What changed my mind was
fi nally reading up on the fl u vac-
cine from reliable scientifi c sources.
It brought me new information that I
hadn’t considered before.
I learned, for example, that while
the fl u shot isn’t a 100% guarantee
you won’t get sick, several studies
have shown that people who get the
fl u after getting the vaccine generally
have less severe symptoms compared
to those who didn’t get the shot.
I also learned that it takes about
two weeks for your body to develop
immunity after you get the fl u vac-
cine. One explanation I read sug-
gested this is the main reason for
many of the “fl u shot made me sick”
stories.
For a skeptic who usually skips
the vaccine, often what prompts them
to try one is a particularly bad out-
break of infl uenza among their fam-
———
CONTACT YOUR
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COLUMN
Clock’s alarm rings anew
or the better part of the past six
months, I haven’t even set an alarm
clock. That all changed last month, as
I was asked to fi ll in for a couple of weeks
while one of my former colleagues was on
vacation.
It couldn’t have come at a bet-
ter time. Since the world turned
into the ‘rona roller coaster, I’ve
mostly maintained a positive atti-
tude. However, with all the smoke
we had from wildfi res and my
osteoarthritis fl aring up because
of changes in barometric pressure, I Tammy
Malgesini
was a hot mess for a bit.
During an 11-day period, I only
left the house twice — for a Walmart pickup
order and to get takeout from Lawan’s Thai
Garden. No walking the dog, no splashing in
my little pool and no lounging on the back
porch. In fact, I was fi rmly planted on my
daybed so long that the memory foam topper
seemed to forget its natural state.
I was giddy as a schoolgirl as I laid out
my clothes the night before I was sched-
uled to return to the newsroom. I even asked
my husband to make sure I got up in case I
somehow slept through the multiple alarms
I set.
Other than a frustrating fi rst hour because
of a computer glitch, it was great to be back
in the newsroom. While my primary focus
was making sure obituaries, death notices
and community news were entered into
the system, it was good to be at work. I’ve
missed the chatter of the scanner and perus-
F
ing information from press releases shortly
after they are sent.
I was extremely grateful for a massage
appointment that was scheduled several days
after I returned to work. For the past six
months, I’ve alternated between sitting on
my overstuffed recliner, the memory foam
topper on my daybed, my zero-gravity out-
door lounger and my fl oating pool chair.
Sitting in front of a computer for 5-6 hours
at a stretch was quite an adjustment.
Returning to work for a couple of weeks
also offered me a chance to evaluate my
future in the workforce. While I’ve been
unemployed a couple of prior times over the
course of my adult life, this time has been
different.
In the past, I looked forward to return-
ing to work full time. While I’m not ready to
retire, I’m not altogether sure that I want to
resume working 40 hours a week.
And I believe the General, my 8-year-old
German shepherd, would prefer that I wasn’t
gone as much. He has gotten quite used to
hanging out on the daybed, chilling outside
and going for more rides together. He was
quite exuberant when I returned each evening
and was a bit more clingy than usual — and
I think he detests the annoying sound of the
alarm clock as much as I do.
---
Tammy Malgesini, the former Hermis-
ton Herald community editor, enjoys spend-
ing time with her husband and two German
shepherds, as well as entertaining herself
with random musings.
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———
STATE REP. GREG
SMITH,
DISTRICT 57
900 Court St. NE, H-482
Salem, OR 97301
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MAYOR DAVID
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180 NE Second St.
Hermiston, OR 97838
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SPEAK UP
Seeking guest viewpoints
Are you a parent who has been managing your children’s distance learning while
working from home, struggling to fi nd child care or had to quit your job during the
pandemic? The Hermiston Herald wants to hear from you about your experience this
year. Submit a 250-word letter to the editor or a guest column of 400 to 650 words about
your experience, along with your name, city of residence and phone number (phone
number is for verifi cation purposes and will not be published) and you may be published
on the opinion page of an upcoming edition of the Hermiston Herald. Letters and
columns can be sent to editor@hermistonherald.com or submitted via the letters form at
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ily, friends or coworkers. It seems
everyone is out sick from work and
all their friends are posting on Face-
book about their awful symptoms,
and so the skeptic decides maybe
they should try out a fl u shot after all.
The problem is, with such an out-
break, the chances are good that by
the time things get bad enough for
the skeptic to go in for a shot, it’s too
late. The virus is either already incu-
bating inside them or they will be
exposed in the next few days before
their body has built up an immunity.
Thus, when they start running a
fever two days later, it only feels like
the fl u shot made them sick — a the-
ory they are all too eager to embrace
without a second thought, because it
confi rms the biases they already had
against the vaccine.
I don’t have space in this column
to debunk all the myths and miscon-
ceptions about vaccines, or explain
why various charts are misleading.
What I do have room for is this:
There are people you know who have
health conditions that mean they can-
not get vaccines, or make them espe-
cially vulnerable to complications
from the fl u. Half of all adults hospi-
talized with the fl u have a heart con-
dition, for example.
Those people are counting on you
to help protect them. One way to
do that is get vaccinated. The rest,
you’ve heard a million times this
year — stay six feet apart, wear a
mask and wash your hands.
It is the policy of the Hermiston Herald to correct errors as
soon as they are discovered. Incorrect information will be
corrected on Page 2A. Errors commited on the Opinion page
will be corrected on that page. Corrections also are noted in
the online versions of our stories.
Please contact the editor at editor@hermistonherald.com or
call (541) 564-4533 with issues about this policy or to report
errors.
SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Letters Policy: Letters to the Editor is a forum for the
Hermiston Herald readers to express themselves on local,
state, national or world issues. Brevity is good, but longer
letters should be kept to 250 words.
No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person.
The Hermiston Herald reserves the right to edit letters for
length and for content.
Letters must be original and signed by the writer or writers.
Anonymous letters will not be printed. Writers should include
a telephone number so they can be reached for questions.
Only the letter writer’s name and city of residence will be
published.
OBITUARY POLICY
The Hermiston Herald publishes paid obituaries. The
obituary can include small photos and, for veterans, a
fl ag symbol at no charge. Expanded death notices will be
published at no charge. These include information about
services. Obituaries may be edited for spelling, proper
punctuation and style.
Obituaries and notices may be submitted online at
hermistonherald.com/obituaryform, by email to obits@
hermistonherald.com, by fax to 541-276-8314, placed via the
funeral home or in person at the Hermiston Herald or East
Oregonian offi ces. For more information, call 541-966-0818 or
1-800-522-0255, x221.