2454: Fully Vaccinated

2021-04-25T07:22:21Z

Epsilondelta: Revert vandalism

{{comic
| number = 2454
| date = April 23, 2021
| title = Fully Vaccinated
| image = fully_vaccinated.png
| titletext = "You still can't walk into someone's house without being invited!" "What? Oh, I see your confusion. No, this vaccine is for a bat VIRUS. I'm fine with doorways and garlic and stuff."
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a FULLY VACCINATED VAMPIRE, which wants to know more about the vampire lore invoked in the title text, and who and how it is misunderstood and who says what...}}
This comic is another in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] related to the {{w|2019–20 coronavirus outbreak|2020 pandemic}} of the {{w|coronavirus}} {{w|SARS-CoV-2}}, which causes {{w|COVID-19}}, specifically regarding the [[:Category:COVID-19 vaccine|COVID-19 vaccine]].

The {{w|Centers for Disease Control and Prevention}} (CDC) has stated that once people are fully vaccinated, they are able to visit other people's houses (and not risk spreading/catching coronavirus). The implication, of course, is that you can visit people that you would also have visited before the outbreak. The humor in this comic comes from [[Megan]] who is just going to visit a random stranger's house. She explains this is okay because she is fully vaccinated, telling the person in the house that she is two weeks past her second dose. This was part of the topic of the last vaccine comic [[2450: Post Vaccine Social Scheduling]].

Restrictions to socializing, brought in as various governments reacted to the emergent COVID-19 pandemic, often disallowed or discouraged visiting family, friends, etc, beyond a mutually isolating 'support bubble', which meant that many house visits that might have occurred beforehand were no longer advisable. With the development and distribution of vaccines, and the eventual receiving of a second dose as applicable, the rules have been modified to allow those vaccinated to once again resume some degree of their prior outgoing behavior where the risks have been mitigated.

In this instance, though, Megan has taken the advice even further. Rather than opening back up to a situation closer to the 'old normal', she has taken it as an official sanction to ''exceed'' the old social limits and pester complete strangers. Alternately, this ''is'' what she always used to do, and only stopped 'for the duration', this unlucky householder being (one of) the first to be subjected to this 'guerilla visiting' now that there seems to be no reason not to continue.

In the title text, the owner of the house explains to Megan that just because she has been vaccinated she just can't enter into someone's house without being invited - a commonly understood form of property law.

But due to the vaccine type Megan thinks the owner has mixed this up with a commonly understood element of vampire lore, that vampires must be {{tvtropes|MustBeInvited|invited into a home}} before they can pass through the doorway.
In vampire lore, vampires are often able to transform into bats, and these two are thematically associated with each other. Since the coronavirus is likely a {{w|bat virome}} that has entered into humans, Megan misunderstands the owner's objection to her entry, believing that the homeowner thinks that the vaccine (or the virus) has made her a vampire. (The virus may have either gone directly to a human from a bat, come to humans through another animal, or been developed using [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_virus genetic engineering] and/or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gain_of_function_research gain-of-function research] starting with a bat virus genome, and then released either accidentally or intentionally. See {{w|Bat virome#Coronaviruses|this section}} on the bat virome page).

Megan thus begins to explain that the vaccine works on a bat virus and has nothing to do with bats. And since she is thus not a vampire she has no problems entering a doorway uninvited, and further explains she also tells that she is also not repelled by garlic or other classic weakness of vampires. Vampire lore states that they are [https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/02/22/six-ways-to-stop-a-vampire/ repelled by garlic], crosses, holy water, sunlight and wooden stakes through the heart (the last being a problem for humans in general, vampiric or otherwise).

The owner is attempting to explain that Megan does not have the legal or moral right to enter simply because she is vaccinated, but this seems to not register with Megan.

Doing ridiculous things that were never allowed, even normally, after being vaccinated or low-risk, was also the theme of [[2434: Vaccine Guidance]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is standing in front of a three-step stair leading up to an open door. She has one hand in the air while talking to someone inside the house, who replies. The ground outside has small tufts of grass.]
:Megan: Hi, I'm here to visit!
:Voice, from inside the house: Do I know you?
:Megan: No, it's cool, I'm two weeks past my second dose.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Remember, once you're fully vaccinated, the CDC says you're free to visit other people's houses.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:COVID-19]]
[[Category:COVID-19 vaccine]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

1699: Local News

2016-06-27T15:46:22Z

Epsilondelta: Added Transcript

{{comic
| number = 1699
| date = June 27, 2016
| title = Local News
| image = local_news.png
| titletext = Will there ever be a physics term greater than 'tachyonic antitelephone?' According to this message from the future, the answer is 'no.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic contrasts the term local with the Quantum mechanics jargon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality]. [More likely dealing with causal nonlocality.]
A "tachyon" is a theoretical or thought-experiment particle which can travel faster than the speed of light. It has many strange properties, including being able to go back in time. The comic and title text are based on this, with the comic making a pun on "local news".

==Transcript==

In local news, city council elections were held today.

In nonlocal news, I killed my past self with a tachyon beam.

{{comic discussion}}

1661: Podium

2016-03-28T13:27:55Z

Epsilondelta: Fixed transcript formatting

{{comic
| number = 1661
| date = March 28, 2016
| title = Podium
| image = podium.png
| titletext = BREAKING: Senator's bold pro-podium stand leads to primary challenge from prescriptivist base.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is speaking at a lectern]
:Cueball: The American people are tired of politics as usual.
:Cueball: They're tired of-
:Cueball: Okay, brief tangent: is this thing a podium or a lectern? People say "podium" is wrong, but I also see it used that way in pretty formal contexts. Is usage just changing?
:Cueball: If elected, I will get to the bottom of this for once and for all.

{{comic discussion}}

1661: Podium

2016-03-28T13:21:38Z

Epsilondelta: Added transcript

{{comic
| number = 1661
| date = March 28, 2016
| title = Podium
| image = podium.png
| titletext = BREAKING: Senator's bold pro-podium stand leads to primary challenge from prescriptivist base.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}}

==Transcript==
[Cueball is speaking at a lectern]
Cueball: The American people are tired of politics as usual.
Cueball: They're tired of-
Cueball: Okay, brief tangent: is this thing a podium or a lectern? People say "podium" is wrong, but I also see it used that way in pretty formal contexts. Is usage just changing?
Cueball: If elected, I will get to the bottom of this for once and for all.

{{comic discussion}}

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2454: Fully Vaccinated

1699: Local News

1661: Podium

1661: Podium