ARI HERZOG

My Personal Blog

About Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog is a teacher and tutor with 20+ years of experience in education, government, and communications. He is blogging during the coronavirus pandemic to make the world a better place.

Mask On, Mask Off

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I used to wear a mask while walking through hallways and up and down staircases to get to the communal laundry room of my apartment building. I carried disposable gloves for touching anything that could be touched by someone else. I frequently brought disinfectant wipes for cleaning machine lids, coin push trays, and folding surfaces.

Thinking back, I smile about the days of 2020 when nobody knew what to do.

That was then. That was before I was vaccinated and adjusted my vigilant behaviors.

It’s now July 2021 and I did laundry this week. I didn’t wear a mask. I didn’t bring gloves. I didn’t disinfect anything. Instead, between washing machine and dryer trips, I reentered my apartment and washed my hands.

I am Vaccinated

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With these three words, I join a growing echelon of the world’s population who are willing to be injected with bioengineered technology in humanity’s fight against SARS-CoV-2.

I received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, comprised of a modified adenovirus and other genetic code to tell my body to stimulate an immune response if I get infected with the virus. The behind-the-scenes science is amazing.

Clinical trials indicate that two weeks after J&J vaccination, I am protected against moderate to severe disease; and four weeks provide 100% protection against hospitalization and death. In other words, I’ll be relatively okay if I get infected.

Vaccine side effects are more common in people ages 18 to 59. That’s my group. The first 24 hours included a series of restlessness, body chills, low-grade fever, and severe headaches. The next 48 hours brought on muscular aches and mild pain at the injection site. After 72 hours, I was fine.

Here’s a picture of my first post-vaccine selfie.

Looking Forward

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One year ago, on March 17, 2020, I resurrected my blog with a focus on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Fast forward and the world is different. There is hope for a renewed future. For the first time in a long time, the world unites to fight the virus — in the form of vaccines.

As of today, over 381 million residents in 72 countries received vaccines manufactured by one of 10 companies. This represents almost 5% of the world’s population. Most vaccines require two doses. I received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The latest global data indicates 21% of U.S. residents are partially vaccinated and 12% (including me) are fully vaccinated. Israel has the largest share of vaccinated residents, with 59% partially and 48% fully. Its neighbor, Egypt, has the smallest share with less than 0.1% partially.

In time, as more vaccine manufacturers are approved for distribution and as more countries (and states and locations) receive supply, more people will hopefully sign up to receive doses.

Controversy always gets critics and naysayers. Vaccines are never universally accepted. However, I hope that a sufficient number of people around the world will choose vaccination as a first step to end the pandemic and eradicate the virus.

Hello 2021!

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My last blog post was six months ago today — when I wrote about normality.

I was offered a job that day, and I’ve been working since as an English teacher at a private elementary school for gifted and talented students. I teach second and third grade. Here’s a link to the impressive faculty.

The pandemic is still with us. Will it ever end?

Vaccines are new. The first U.S. vaccine was given in December 2020. After three months, it seems that most Americans are either fully vaccinated, signing up for an appointment, waiting to get an appointment, or waiting to be eligible.

A February 2021 poll by the Associated Press indicates that 15% of Americans don’t want the vaccine and another 17% probably won’t get it. The jury’s out if herd immunity can exist without them.

Outside of school…

I’ve been keeping busy watching assorted TV shows and movies on Netflix and other Roku channels. I’m enjoying the mindless entertainment of NCIS. I started watching it a few years ago. I’m currently in season 9 (out of 18 and counting).

I subscribe to digital editions of The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The New York Times; and I enjoy reading the different apps for various styles of reporting and storytelling.

Across social media, I use Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook Groups the most. For instance, I follow a lot of travel photographers, indoor gardeners, and celebrity animals on Instagram and I constantly get inspired. Tucker the dog and Chunk the groundhog get me to laugh all the time.

I recently watched the first two parts of a YouTube video series featuring dialect coach Erik Singer. He “travels” around the country and explains how accents are born, die, and are connected to each other. Among other things, the first video taught me about monophthongization and the second video taught me about the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. I love learning about language!

Normal Life

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The last time I wrote about “the new normal” was when I redefined the term in June 2020.

In that blog post, I explained that I began using the term because others used it. Recognizing that the pandemic wasn’t going away in the near future, I suggested that we describe our lives under the universal header of life.

Fast forward to Seth Godin who also shrugged off the term.

Using plain language, Seth explained why we live in a normal of now and why history will look back on our current lives as footnotes in a larger narrative. He suggested that it’s silly to say we live in a new normal when we will always live in new normals.

That’s life.

Why I Don’t Know My Password

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For the better part of a decade, I employed a mnemonic password system to remember every password for every website that required one.

In early 2020, I deleted every password that mattered and replaced them with a randomly-generated string of characters (comprising capital letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols).

I use an open-source password manager called Bitwarden that creates the passwords and auto-logs me into websites that require them.

Additionally, I use a program called Authy which backs-up two-factor authentication codes into the cloud. This avoids needing my email address or my phone.

Now, it doesn’t matter if I’m logging into Facebook or the Washington Post because while I usually know my username, I definitely don’t know my password. But by logging into Bitwarden, it is pre-configured know when and where to input the correct login credentials. All I have to do is click a button to tell Bitwarden to do it.

Authy comes into play if the website (or I) want to verify I am the only person authorized to use that account. This is in place on everything from Gmail to PayPal to my blog. And if I don’t have my phone on me, I can still safely log into everything.

You should use password management in this age of Russian hacking, especially if and when using easy-to-guess passwords that might include dictionary words. Password managers such as Bitwarden, LastPass, 1Password, etc. will create and store your hard-to-guess website passwords and you only need to know the master password to access the application.

As for two-factor authentication, that might not be for you. But if you’re frequently (or rarely, for that matter) logging into websites or apps that can control your money or identity, then you should definitely set it up.