I’m 26, I walk 3 miles a day, I don’t have underlying conditions, and I’m not an essential front-line worker, but I just got the coveted COVID-19 vaccine. Wondering how this happened? Yes me too.
On Friday, sitting in the lobby of a Brooklyn clinic, waiting for the coronavirus test appointment, I overheard a man talking quietly to someone on the other side of a door. “We have one dose left: is there anyone in the building who wants it?”
I jumped up and yelled “Me!”
He turned and looked at me, nodded and led me upstairs to a room with a fabric screen and a folding table. Then a nurse told me about the process of filling out an online registration and a double-sided paper form before offering more details: I would receive the Modern vaccine, the last dose of her last vial of the day.
Of course, I missed the opportunity to advance it in front of the elderly and other vulnerable groups; it would have been a waste if I hadn’t. In a testament to the failure of American supply chains (vaccine deployment has been so sloppy), I suspect situations like mine are not at all uncommon.
The reason they offered it to me was because the health worker for whom it was intended was missing their appointment, the 10-dose vial only had a shelf life of six hours and they were about to close the day. No, the nurse hadn’t heard of this guy from a DC supermarket with whom this also happened. No, there was no one more vulnerable to COVID than I was available through a guard waiting list to do so; there was no one else available, period.
It was my arm or the trash.
I walked behind the screen and greeted another nurse, who rolled up my sleeve as she loaded the syringe. I told her that I was dizzy with excitement, overwhelmed with gratitude, and that this experience reminded me of the immersive off-Broadway play “Don’t Sleep Any More,” in which actors take audience members to theaters that , otherwise, they are out of bounds for private representations of clandestine sensation. . I didn’t know the show, but I understood how I felt at the time: here, behind the curtain, about to be inoculated with this deadly disease that has forever altered society and continues to wreak havoc on humanity, a lot of people had broken down and cried, he said. They too were overwhelmed by gratitude.
He stuck the needle in my arm.
He kept renouncing the pandemic, how grateful he was for that moment, his story. He listened and nodded, then sent me to sit in a chair next to the entrance to the room while we waited 15 minutes to make sure I had no immediate adverse reactions.
When I was sending the news to my family group chat when the first nurse handed me a card with my name and date and told me to bring it when I got back (to this place or another, it didn’t matter). to get my second Moderna shot in a month.
“You saved the dose,” she said as I headed for the stairs.
I breathlessly thanked everyone who passed by the building and jumped home, feeling more like I had only experienced interactive theater than medical protocol.
A number of conflicting policies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the state make what to do with the additional vaccines unclear and a contentious and punishable crime. The FDA’s formal policy warns, “Discard the vial after 6 hours. Don’t freeze again.” So it was likely that those nurses were expected to discard my prey instead of using it to inoculate my still-ineligible life from a demographic standpoint.
There is no reason why I should get vaccinated before my immunocompromised grandparents, who wait patiently if they anxiously wait their turn to get the vaccine, nor is there any reason why doses should be given. or be unused. The launch of U.S. vaccines has been a disgrace, but did we really expect anything different to end this pandemic, which in the United States has been defined by both the new virus and the impact of government failure on people?
Government officials Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
Meanwhile, a New York Health + Hospitals spokesman told The Post that “you follow all state guidelines on ‘end-of-day’ doses. Your experience fits with state-wide guidelines.”
When the coronavirus first took over New York, there was an outpouring of support for essential and front-line workers: flowers appeared in the hand-painted rainbow morgue trucks thanking the nurses; the city came out at 7pm to pop in pans with a strong show of gratitude.
Now, as the other side of this disease is increasingly concentrated, it is health care workers who are most personally responsible for making the tough decision to follow federal guidelines and take a dose or follow their bowels and possibly save lives.