It’s early January 2021 and you’ve just had your first Covid vaccination. You’ve been dodging the coronavirus for the last year. Your ICU colleagues are queued up behind you, eagerly waiting their turn. Freedom, safety, and life, all in that little ampoule, and, unbeknown to you, a little something extra that you’re about to discover when you get home later that evening.
We first started hearing the stories a few weeks after the covid vaccinations started. Male colleagues who’d discovered the hidden side effect of the Covid vaccine, who’d discuss it in hushed tones of awe among their fellow male colleagues. “Did it happen to you too?” The sort of sheepish questions you’re hesitant to ask in case someone thinks you’ve lost the plot.
As it turns out, it was a shared experience, widely felt by inoculated health care workers and as we’re nosy by nature we set about examing ingredients from both the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines to try and identify the culprit for this welcome side effect. We came up empty-handed. Granted we’re not chemists by trade, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look through listed ingredients to ascertain if any could possibly cause the type of side effects men were experiencing.
We even went to the lengths of contacting two experts to ask the question. Nada, zippo, zilch. No ingredients listed in either of the vaccines could possibly result in the side effect experienced by our male colleagues. Whatever was causing it, sadly didn’t appear to be bottled inside that vaccine, so now the question remained.
Why were men experiencing prolonged and amplified sexual drive and desire for in some cases, up to two days after receiving their vaccination?
Note, this wasn’t simply restricted to medical staff. As the vaccine rollout reached other segments of the population, we still occasionally heard stories, but to a lesser degree than within the medical profession. That was the clue we’d been looking for and could have explained why so many doctors’ wives were nagging them repeatedly about not missing their appointment for that “second dose”.
The ultimate ‘happy ending’
Vaccine manufacturers had not inadvertently stumbled onto a new, amplified version of that now-famous little blue pill. What was going on here was good old-fashioned human psychology. The secret ingredient no one had thought to include in the vaccine ingredient list. Hope. The covid vaccine represented a life raft, a little yellow bobbing sign of hope within the grasp of the drowning men who’d spent the last year treading water, fearful for their own lives and those of their family.
Think of the soldier, eating his last meal, on the verge of being executed by his captors, when the sound of gunfire reaches his ears and his prison door is thrown open by liberating forces. He’s been saved, brought back from the ledge of death and the relief he experiences is instant and prolonged. For days he wanders aimlessly in a heady state of intoxicated elation thinking one thought, over and over “I’m alive”.
This is exactly what doctors and frontline healthcare workers faced with the coronavirus, day after day, month after interminable month, and while the threat was manageable, this kind of continued stressor wears away at you. Really, really wears away.
The threat of an unknown future and possible death. If it sounds melodramatic it isn’t. It is exactly what these individuals have lived with on a daily basis for over a year now. The covid vaccine represented the get of out jail card, the little yellow life raft, and the turn of the key in that jail cell. Freedom and the certainty of life tomorrow and the day after, for both the healthcare worker and their families. All you had to do was hang in there long enough to get vaccinated. A year is an awfully long time when you’re dodging bullets.
So the elation those little vials released was huge and immediate. The soldiers had just been handed their Kevlar and they felt invincible. Their wives and partners were about to experience the benefits of this rush of endorphins. In most cases, more than once. Being men, as soon as we’re not consumed by thoughts of our own impending death, we turn our focus to the really important stuff.
All across America, for the first time in months, bedroom doors were closed and children lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of parental bliss repeatedly issuing from behind those doors. For a few fleeting moments, all was forgotten and all forgiven. The warriors had returned triumphant, dragon slain and they were going to claim their sacrificial virgins.
And so, unbeknown to Pfizer and Moderna, they hadn’t just developed a simple viral vaccine, they’d also just happened on the most powerful aphrodisiac known to man. The promise of life.
Unfortunately, after the initial round of vaccinations, another unexpected administrative side effect has emerged. Hospital administrators are now having to process a growing mountain of requests from spouses. They are politely having to decline requests for additional covid vaccinations. Each response letter contains a carefully wrapped little blue pill.
