New York corona vaccination certificate: new start in life after Covid-19

My vaccination certificate is there. To be more precise: My very personal scan code for the new New York Corona vaccination app. “Excelsior” is the name of this app, it sounds like a church, but it is the atheistic motto of our state: Ever upward, always higher, always optimistic.

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Two weeks after the second dose of Biontech / Pfizer (which is called America first, Pfizer / Biontech), the weekend wasn’t just mine 90 percent immunity officially effective, but also their “digital proof”. A blue sheen on the smartphone as an entry ticket for a new life after Corona: “Sports events, art events and more!” It is decorated with Lady Liberty, the local cliché symbol of freedom, real and imaginary.

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Imaginary, because even with the first US vaccination certificate nationwide, the devil is again in the details, i.e. in the small print, bottom left: “Valid until September 22, 2021, 11:59 am.” And then, from twelve?

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Age! – The midlife column

When you are young, you experience a lot for the first time: the first kiss, the first trip without parents. When you hit the 50 mark, a lot of new things also happen: the first hot flashes, the first artificial joint. And you suddenly see some things differently. Our four columnists take turns talking about why everything wasn’t better in the past. All columns can be found here.

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A relaunch with an expiration date. After all, nobody knows how long these vaccines really work. And for me, every promise of a new life comes with an automatic expiration date anyway. Because how often do you want to start all over again when you can slowly but more clearly see when your body and mind will stop?

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Welcome to my morbid midlife world. Perhaps a bit too morbid, when at least everyone here is cheering about the light at the end of the corona tunnel. “You can feel it!” Shouted New York’s vaccinated Mayor Bill de Blasio when he reopened the historic amusement park in Coney Island on Friday and jumped into the roller coaster, daring in the front car.

Non Corona-grateful person

Okay, don’t everyone cheer. Especially not about this vaccination certificate, a still immature pilot project with which Governor Andrew Cuomo is probably also hoping to divert attention from his own political midlife crisis. Sexual harassment, bullying, coronavirus cover-up, impeachment threats – but he gives us the first vaccination app!

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What use this is of course questionable, a feeling that I know as a career skeptic in mid-life. The Excelsior-App can show vaccination status and corona tests and should help theaters, restaurants, shops, sports facilities, airlines and companies to decide by scan who is allowed in and who is persona non corona grata. But participation remains voluntary, on both sides of the scanner.

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“You can feel it!”: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in Coney Island

Photo: Peter Foley / EPA

Politically, it is therefore as controversial as in Germany, but with often more abstruse arguments. The conspiracy theorist and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sits in the US Congress, demonizes vaccination certificates not only as discrimination, but as a “sign of the Antichrist”. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis considers vaccination certificates to be state interference in private matters and has therefore banned them by decree, which in turn is state interference, but it doesn’t matter.

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Others have privacy concerns, certainly justified. My health has been electronically saved for years, on the one hand by my US family doctor and on the other (partially) in various fitness apps. Weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, testosterone and now the vaccination system: It’s too late for data protection anyway.

My dimensions have increased unfavorably

I can look up the medical findings of my midlife existence at any time. For example, if I want to know whether a post-pandemic reboot is still worthwhile – and if so, whether I can muster the necessary energy.

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Because the year of lockdowns, shutdowns and other activity brakes has undoubtedly clouded my diagnosis. Not only have my measurements increased unfavorably, but so have all the other numbers in the doctor’s file. Only the testosterone level drops, even six cups of coffee a day won’t keep you upright enough.

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Postpandemischer Reboot: Jogger am New Yorker Hudson-Ufer

Foto: Richard B. Levine / imago images

To put it plainly: I am far too tired for this new life at the moment. Is that a consequence of the corona coma, a consequence of age (es) or both? After a short euphoria, the vaccination plunged me even deeper into a physical and psychological midlife lethargy.

I used to be younger, fitter and more alert to get started anyway. About 40 years ago as a teenager, in April 1981, when I was in New York City for the first time. The visit sparked a spark that ignited years later: I returned to my second degree and then as a correspondent to start a new life here, at least a new phase of life that became the second half of my life.

But the body strives for the sofa

They are encouraging us to make such ambitious resolutions again at the après-corona regulars’ table. Don’t waste another day! From now on, live only full speed ahead! Excelsior! But suddenly I lack the urge to revival. That’s the way it is with reboots. At some point the mind may strive for new shores, but the body strives for the sofa.

At least my husband and I wanted to go back to our regular restaurant for the first time in more than a year, a little Italian in Crown Heights. Outside we still wore masks, inside every second table was cleared because of the Nochcorona rules. The ravioli were as exquisite as ever, we felt safe, epidemiological and culinary, only the joints groaned when we got up afterwards.

Nobody asked us about the vaccination certificate.

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