I am 26 years old, I walk 3 miles a day, I have no underlying illnesses and I am not an essential front-line worker – but I just received the coveted COVID-19 vaccine. Want to know how it happened? Yes, me too.
While sitting in the lobby of a Brooklyn clinic on Friday, waiting for my coronavirus test appointment, I heard a man talking quietly to someone on the other side of the door. “We have a dose left – is there anyone in the building who wants this?”
I jumped up and shouted “Me!”
He turned and looked at me, nodded and took me upstairs to a room with a cloth screen and a folding table. A nurse then explained the process of filling out an online registration and a two-sided paper form before offering more details – I would take the Moderna vaccine, the last dose of the last vial of the day.
Of course, I grabbed the chance to get him ahead of the elderly and other vulnerable groups – it would have been destroyed if I hadn’t. In a testimony to the failure of supply chains in the United States – the vaccine launch has been so careless – I suspect that situations like mine are not rare.
The reason I was offered it was because the health professional for whom it was intended missed the appointment, the 10-dose bottle only had a six-hour shelf life and was about to close that day. No, the nurse hadn’t heard of that guy in a DC supermarket with whom it happened, too. No, there was no one more vulnerable to COVID than I was available on a call waiting list to serve him – there was no one else available, period.
It was my arm or the trash.
I went behind the screen and greeted another nurse, who made me roll up my sleeve while carrying the syringe. I told her that I felt dizzy with excitement, overwhelmed by gratitude, and that this experience reminded me of the engaging off-Broadway play “Sleep No More”, in which actors take audience members to rooms that would otherwise be banned for private clandestine presentations. She didn’t know the program, but she understood how I felt at that moment: Here, behind the curtain, on the verge of inoculation of this deadly disease that forever changed society and continues to wreak havoc on humanity, many people broke down and cried, she said. They were also filled with gratitude.
She stuck the needle in my arm.
I continued chattering about the pandemic, how grateful I was for this moment, how historic it was. She listened and nodded, then told me to sit in a chair near the entrance to the room while we waited 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t have any immediate adverse reactions.
I was texting my family group’s chat when the first nurse handed me a card with my name and date, and told me to bring it when I returned – to this location or another, it didn’t matter to get my second picture of Moderna in a month.
“You saved the dose,” she said as I headed for the stairs.
I, out of breath, thanked everyone for whom I crossed my way out of the building and went home, feeling more like I had just experienced interactive theater than the medical protocol.
A series of conflicting policies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and the state make what to do with extra vaccines unclear and a contentious and fineable offense. The formal FDA policy warns: “Discard the bottle after 6 hours. Do not freeze again. ”So it was likely that these nurses would discard my injection instead of using it to inoculate my life that is not yet demographically eligible.
There is absolutely no reason why I should be vaccinated before my immunocompromised grandparents, who are patiently, though anxiously, waiting for their turn to receive the vaccine, nor is there a reason why doses should be thrown out or not used. The launch of the American vaccine was a shame, but did we really expect something different to end this pandemic, which in the United States was defined both by the new virus and the impact of government failure on individuals?
Representatives of Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.
Meanwhile, a NYC Health + Hospitals spokesman told the Post that he is “following all state guidelines regarding ‘end of day’ doses. His experience fits the orientation that was propagated by the state. “
When the coronavirus first took over New York, he was greeted by a wave of support for essential and frontline workers: flowers appeared on morgue trucks with hand-painted rainbows thanking the nurses; the city left at 19h to beat pots in a show of gratitude.
Now, as the other side of this disease increasingly comes into focus, it is again health professionals who are personally bearing the weight – making the difficult decision to follow federal guidelines and get rid of a dose or follow their instincts. and possibly save life.