By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

All this back and forth among friends, acquaintances and even total strangers is amazing in the extreme.

I am referring to those who are using social media to proclaim that they have gotten vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. Hey, I share their joy. I am vaccinated, too. So is my wife. Same for one of my sons; my other son has “antibodies” in his system, which tells me he must’ve caught the virus but didn’t show any symptoms.

This is a peculiar side effect of the pandemic response.

The vaccines are rolling out, tens of millions of doses at a time. Three big pharma companies have yanked out all the stops to deliver the vaccines in virtually no time. Operation Warp Speed kicked in and the drug makers delivered the goods.

I am just astonished at the enthusiasm we are expressing when we are able to obtain a vaccine. I cannot remember any time when public response to a crisis has reached this kind of level.

We are hearing the occasional grumbling, too. A member of my family had two vaccine appointments canceled when she was informed that she didn’t qualify under one of the two initial groups that were getting the shots. That changed today. She went to her local pharmacy and received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. What did she do? She called me to share the good news!

We’re getting giddy about the vaccine. I am going to wait anxiously for the time when we get word that we have reached the threshold of “herd immunity,” which is when a significant majority of Americans are inoculated.

If this initial reaction to the arrival of the vaccine is going to produce the kind of response I sense that we’re getting, well, then it’ll be Katie-bar-the-door when enough of us get inoculated against a disease that is still causing too much misery for us to cheer too loudly.

But I welcome the reaction. It’s as if we’re all having babies.