Re: idiots walk among us

Keith F. Lynch wrote:

Mike Van Pelt <usenet@mikevanpelt.com> wrote:

Nobody gets vaccinated against smallpox any more, since the virus
is extinct.  In the wild.  I grimly await some (long string of
weapons-grade expletives) to break that out of the freezer and
inflict it on the world again.

 That may not be the only way it can happen.  At a book signing I asked
James Watson if a terrorist could synthesize smallpox, given that its
complete genome is in the open literature.  He said no, but he looked
very uncomfortable when answering, so I'm skeptical.
 A few weeks later, Keith Marshall (a fellow local SF fan) asked me if
I was the one who asked him that.  It turned out that the event was
carried via radio, and he was listening, and recognized my voice.
 

... also got the vaccines for Covid and all boosters, pneumonia,
RSV, the yearly flu shot... and due to a business trip to India,
hepatitis and typhus.

 Covid is the only thing I've been vaccinated for in this century.
 I've never had a flu shot,

In middle age I had the flu for seven consecutive years, and serious cases too.    Being the ultra-fast thinker that I am, I had an idea: "What if I get a flu shot?".  In the more than a quarter century since then I've had no serious  cases of  the flu, and only a very few mild ones.
  and never had the flu.  Or a cold, at least

as an adult.

Now I seethe with envy!
I managed to avoid any respiratory infection from the onset of  Covid until last fall.  So far I've had a cold for about 75% of this calendar year.  It's really interfering with my intensive program of doing nothing.
William Hyde