Sorry about the lack of posts lately, but I've been fighting a few battles on, so to speak, the home front.
Main battle: Like many of you, I'd been scrambling to score the Covid vaccine. In New York state, where I live, the quest for the shots has been something right out of Kafka. Our local county officials brag day after day about the scores of sites (mainly chain drugstores) which are administering the vaccine. Day after day, they enthusiastically and helpfully list all the sites. Hope springs eternal, day after day, that this could finally be your lucky day in the lottery of bare survival. I spent countless hours over the past month obsessively clicking on every single one of these sites and links - only to be informed that I'd have to install an app on my phone to even get access to an application for an appointment. But never mind, because they are currently not taking any appointments anyway.
It's classic bait and switch, on a grander scale than I have ever experienced in my life. It's also excessively, gaslightingly cruel. It is especially sadistic in my state, given that New York has already creepily begun issuing "vaccine passports" for the lucky few. It even got me wondering if I was doing something wrong in my failure to get access to get an appointment to get vaccinated.
But it turns out that my quixotic quest for the Elixir has been the rule rather than the exception for the majority of people, in my state and in many other areas of the country. It is the epitome and most recent glaring symptom of the Failed State in which we live.
But miracle of miracles! In neighboring Orange County, the chief executive had taken to posting scarce appointment availabilities on his own personal website in the dead of night when crashes caused by desperate people are less likely.
My son, who happens to work in the dead of night, pounced and made appointments for both me and my daughter at a "pod" only one hour's drive away from our home.
Long story short: Steeling myself for another nightmare straight out of Kafka, I armed myself to the teeth with more forms of I.D. than even the Department of Motor Vehicles requires, fully prepared to beg right on my creaking knees for bureaucrats to find me valid enough to pass the final exam of deservedness.
So you can only imagine how stunned we were on Friday to be ushered like VIPs into a comparative Disney theme park at a local senior center. Scores of happy workers greeted us effusively. One of them even wore a Lion King shirt! We were immediately seated at a table and answered a few nonintrusive perfunctory questions before rolling up our sleeves and getting inoculated.
We were offered bottled water by dozens of smiling people while we were seated in an observation area for the requisite 15 minutes. The experience not only stunned me right out of my habitual cynicism, it restored my faith in humanity itself.
For those of you who still waiting, still struggling to score your own shots, let me tell you that the feeling of doom and dread that departs from your psyche the minute you receive that first dose of elixir is an elixir in and of itself. On the downside, getting the shot does leave you with something akin to survivor guilt, knowing that so many people are still having problems getting theirs.
I have to quit now, because my arm still hurts like a bitch when I exert it. It's a great feeling, she said shamefacedly.
One windmill down, only about a few thousand left to go. So stay tuned while I wait for all the ebullience to subside and for my cynicism to healthily return. Meanwhile, please feel free to leave a comment on your own quests to become meritocratic winners in the Golden Arm Sweepstakes, or for that matter, anything else that's on your minds.
Happy Easter!
ReplyDeleteBrief as I suspect it will be, Karen, enjoy your resurrection from cynicism, Kafka repeats and the otherwise dismal American political scene.
Like you, I hate those sites that force you to download their app before you can get what you need. Why don't the nerds, instead of forcing us to learn their procedures, simply take our names and themselves insert our data into their Rube Goldberg creations? Who knows what comes in their downloads to my computer? As you can tell, I've still not emerged into any butterfly resurrection states.
Wife and I got the jab up here in Canada three weeks ago, kinda early thanks to our being of a certain age. The appointment making and physical setup was surprisingly good. Lots of people, long zigzag lineups masked and keeping distance. The only problem was getting lost entering and exiting a huge government complex. But having found the conveyor belt to vaccinations, we were pleased to see things moving along at a good pace. About two days later, our arms forgot about their aching deltoids.
We chanced to get the Pfizer, of which mRNA variety of vaccine I am mightily wary. If the authorities had given me a menu, I would have opted for the one dose Johnson & Johnson. I know, I know, an enormous batch of J&J 'one and done' vaccine was screwed up (or sabotaged) at the manufacturing plant last week.
We have appointments for jab #2 four months from now, in July, the thinking in Canada being, let's dose everyone at least once for some protection before giving the second dose. There is even some speculation that the government may mix and match, say, a Pfizer with an Astrazeneca or Moderna or whatever to eventually get a second dose inside everybody.
The officials who initially told us in March 2020 not to wear masks, and who kept the schools and swimming pools and restaurants open with few exceptions, and who shunted old folk positives into old folk nursing homes, which were utterly ill prepared to give safe care in the best of times –– well that same government crew has begun to ponder whether mix and match vaccines are good enough so they can one day declare Mission Accomplished.
We have not here a lasting city. Happy Easter, Happy Resurrection.
Congrats! I got shots over the past couple months. Did a lot of searching. I do feel more protected, so that's good for the mind. I guess I could get my passport tomorrow if I wanted one ( if my State issues them). But I'm not changing much in my behavior right now. The race is one. Vaccinations vs reckless behavior. Which will win?
ReplyDeleteHey Karen, Jay and mjb. Glad you got your shots! Being a little on the youngish side and relatively healthy, I won't be eligible for mine for another few weeks. Fingers crossed I and everyone else who has to wait makes it till then.
ReplyDeleteHere's an AP article from today about the unfortunate souls who almost made it but didn't. May they rest in peace.
https://apnews.com/article/immunizations-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-veterans-d43aade61cf70abe1f9de070a8d1280b
Michigan, my county specifically, is supposed to be a place rather behind on the vaccine front, and also cursed with a substantial new wave of Covid.
ReplyDeleteYet I got an email from the local hospital where my MD has privileges, urging me to make an on line appointment. I did in moments. Next day I went for my vaccine, a few minutes drive for a 5:10 appointment. I was half an hour early (afraid I'd get lost) but they said no problem, they had plenty of space just go right on in.
The hospital has a Vaccine Center set up behind, surrounded by a huge parking lot with lots of security shuffling cars in and out. It was so well organized it reminded me of an Army base doing its Fourth of July celebration (the best organized traffic I've ever been part of, MP's on show). It was beyond easy, simply amazing it was so well run.
There were eight stations for injections, and two rooms to wait our 15 minutes after with big screen TV's doing the countdown for us. There were lines of us shuffling through without pause, but I was in and out in half an hour or less, not just out of the room but on the road home. All this in a place media reports has troubles with vaccine.
It could not be any more different from Karen's report of her experiences. Yet I read in media that New York is doing well.
Can I believe any media I read about all this? This seems to be a world of "up is down" reporting of actual experiences I have or personal reports I trust.
Husband got his shot through a mass vax site run by Kroger. It was very efficient. I got mine through the county health department. It was super efficient too. No waiting at all, and very friendly. The most difficult part was scheduling. Racial makeup of recipients appeared to almost mirror the city's as a whole-- I say 'almost" because I think I only saw one Latino recipient.
ReplyDeleteMy husband also got a COVID test at the CVS and he marveled at how well that was done.The nurse practitioner was very good with instructions and friendly.
I live in a largish city.
I think the US vaccination rollout is going better than Canada's, from what I've read.
The clinic where I work started months ago giving free vaccines to 75 and over in that county. Then they dropped the age to 65, then 50 and over. Also included were high risk patients and front line workers. They were giving 40+ vaccines daily, and many people have already had their second. Now, they are administering to anyone who lives in the county who wants one.
ReplyDeleteI hesitated myself, due to having had a mild case last November. I felt I had immunity for a while and didn't want to take a shot away from someone at higher risk. But then seeing the discussion about passports, and also reading about improvement in long-COVID symptoms (which I have had) made me change my mind. I will be getting my second one in 12 days.
I was a vaccine snob and passed up chances to get the Moderna in February (for those >65) in favor of waiting for the J&J one-and-done.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I did because instead of having to make two 40 mile round trip drives to a mass vaccination site a month apart, I walked 10 minutes to one appointment that I made easily online for the J&J at a Safeway pharmacy. There was a brief wait while the pharmacist finished up with filling a prescription but otherwise I was in and out of there in no time.
I had read it was being made available to rural area pharmacies so I immediately followed a link provided by the county health department to a page run by Kroger/Smith/Albertsons/Safeway, et.al. I entered my zip code, found my neighborhood grocery store, chose my day and time and that was it. I got it on the first day it was available locally, on March 5th.
My arm hurt a bit and I had a headache for ~24 hours. Yes, it was a huge relief - freedom! I still wear a mask in public but it's mask off with people I know have been vaccinated.
I think the biggest mistake Gov't officials made was not portraying this as a WAR. That's the only thing Americans seem to understand, respect, and honor. Is everyone in D.C. clueless about our national character?
'Freedom is not free - put on your mask and get shot!' 'Arm up with a shot in the arm!' 'Uncle Sam Wants YOU - to wear a mask!' I bet there's a ton of good slogans someone could have dreamed up to capitalize on the warrior image Americans are so damned proud of. They could have commissioned the manufacture of camouflage masks or American Flag masks under authority of the Defense Production Act and had census takers distribute them. They would have people begging for those. Where was our great propaganda machine? This was right up their alley. Were they too busy ginning up the next war?
Day after day we saw on the news that front line medical workers had to resort to wearing garbage bags and flimsy surgical masks. That made me so angry and frustrated that I wanted to pull my hair out and scream. I still do! Spineless Uncle Tony (Fauci), 'America's Doctor', the highest paid Federal employee, didn't dare stand up to Trump. He didn't even dare climb on his soapbox to speak on behalf of health care workers to demand they get the proper, lifesaving PPEs to do their jobs.
Noooo, instead, Fauci told us his big fat 'noble lie' about how we didn't need to wear masks (so we wouldn't buy and hoard them), and his boss Trump downplayed the virus (so as not to rock the economy). Meanwhile nurses, exposed to Covid day and night, were still left wearing paper surgical masks instead of N-95s and were dropping like flies, sick, dying, and burning out and the public was told it was too dangerous for us to enjoy parks in the fresh open air. No wonder this country is batshit crazy, with this type of reasoning and judgment from our 'leaders'.
Thanks for this opportunity for a mini-rant, Karen.
I live in Suffolk county,L.I. Which, last I heard, is still part of New York state, and as I was fortunate enough to have been diagnosed last year with lung cancer, I was able to get my covid vaccine shots at Memorial Sloane Kettering hospital in neighboring Nassau county. Stony Brook University hospital, near me has been offering the shots for the last few months and I was slated to receive my shots there before MSK offered to do it sooner.Since I luckily qualify as an old geezer with diabetes, I jumped to the head of the line
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe above reports are interesting, and I appreciate the rants that sometimes accompany the reports.
This might be the moment to share another rant, not my own, but one laid down by a solid member of our blogroll. The report is about a virus-killing drug that's worked amazingly well elsewhere, and cheaply. For some strange reason, perhaps related to the profit motive, this drug can get no traction in certain geographical areas.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/03/its-time-to-talk-about-ivermectin.html
I got an appt in Syracuse mid-March, but it was like getting concert tickets. Click, re-click, search for appts nearby, an hour away, 3 hours away. Once the Federal Govt started sending lots of vaccine to NY State, the State Fairgrounds in Syracuse opened appointments 24/7. Since then, it's been quite easy to get an appt either there, or at the chain pharmacies. Even my GP has vaccines now.
ReplyDeleteI guess all it took was a little competency in acquisition and distribution.