PHEW: Judy Blume has been vaccinated.
Despite the generally disastrous COVID vaccine roll-out, we as a country have done at least one thing right: protected Judy Blume. This morning, Blume, 82, tweeted that she and her husband had received their first doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Husb and I got our first dose of Moderna Vaccine on Friday in Key West. At last, something good about being 80+ and a 2 year Pan Can survivor (husb). No problems. Less of a sore arm than with flu shot.
— Judy Blume (@judyblume) January 11, 2021
Leave it to Blume, who helped generations of kids realize that first periods were nothing to fear and that sex isn’t shameful, to present her vaccine experience matter-of-factly. Maybe her Tweet will nudge a few vaccine skeptics in the right direction—just like when Deenie decided she would wear her back brace, after all.
Of course, keeping Judy Blume safe is a win in itself, so I’ll take what I can get.
Jessie Gaynor
Jessie Gaynor is a senior editor at Lit Hub whose writing has appeared in McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, The Glow was published by Random House in 2023. You can buy it here.
