First published, not published, in mid-March 2023
“So grateful for vaccines. So grateful for vaccines!”
My running
mantra the entire 8 days of my recent COVID quarantine. This first-timer spent
a lot of time on the couch, getting little done yet deeply grateful that every
vaccine and booster did its job, kept me from feeling so much worse and now
fully recovered. Coincidently, my 85-year-old mother and 25% of residents and
staff at her assisted living home were going through the same. So grateful for
vaccines!
I was prepared
to get COVID one day. I wasn’t prepared for how easily my brain substituted
“HIV” with every test result and my vaccine gratitude. It shouldn’t have come
as a surprise given my near constant appeals for HIV vaccine funding over the
last 3 decades. It was humbling, just the same.
Yes, I’m peddling HIV/AIDS vaccine research progress at Emory Vaccine
Center. Yes, I ask for your donation to keep that research pressing on to the
same success EVC contributed to COVID vaccines. And yes, I’ll pedal my bike this
May in Action Cycling Atlanta’s AIDS Vaccine 200 cycling event. In its 20th
anniversary year, participants will press on to bring attention to a need still
with us, a virus that still kills at pandemic proportions despite much-welcome
advances in treatment and prevention strategies. COVID put a crimp in my
training schedule but boosted determination to make my COVID mantra relevant
for a world affected and at risk for HIV/AIDS.
