Stacey Griffith has been a star instructor for SoulCycle for over a decade. For 45 minutes at a time, she teaches her riders how to pace, how to turn a button that increases the resistance they’re pushing against and how to “find their passion and purpose” on bikes that go nowhere. Her classes are legendary, running out over and over again, making her the highest-paid SoulCycle instructor in the company, with $ 800 per class.
And on Friday, she says she used these credentials to mark her first injection of the Moderna vaccine.
“Now I can teach SoulCycle with a little more faith that we will all be fine,” she wrote in an Instagram post now deleted. She tagged five people who, she said, helped her “fill out online forms” and “send paperwork” to get the vaccine.
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Griffith is located in New York City, where the city’s health department is in phase 1b of the vaccine launch, making healthcare professionals, grocery workers, residents over 65 and teachers eligible for the vaccine. According to these guidelines, Griffith was not eligible, but she told the Daily Beast that she received the vaccine because she was an “educator” whose priority is “to keep my community and its respiratory systems operating at full capacity so that they can fight this virus if they are infected with it. ”
How badly the vaccine was launched and how difficult it has been for people Does In order to qualify for the vaccine, Griffith’s explanation raised questions about what Griffith and his team completed on those forms.
Griffith’s Instagram account was bombarded by angry commentators asking why and how she was able to get a dose before people who might need it due to pre-existing health conditions or age.
The scandal has become so big that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio talked about the Griffith vaccine during a press conference over the weekend, saying she shouldn’t have succeeded.
“It doesn’t sound like someone who should have vaccinated me,” said de Blasio. “I don’t think anyone who comes up and says, ‘Hey, I’m a SoulCycle instructor’ should qualify, unless there is something else there.
Although Griffith’s vaccination is undoubtedly tabloid-worthy, it symbolizes the biggest frustrations surrounding the vaccine’s launch in the United States. While there are rules about who can get the vaccine, being rich and well connected can help someone jump the line. And as the eligible parties refuse to take and vaccines threaten to spoil in some places, the biggest conversation revolves around a question: Who “deserves” to receive the vaccine?
SoulCycle distanced itself from its star instructor’s vaccine
Officially, SoulCycle distanced itself from Griffith’s actions. A spokesman told me that the company did not play a role in scoring the vaccine for the famous instructor:
Stacey Griffith operated on a personal basis when applying for a COVID-19 vaccine in the state of NY. SoulCycle plays no role in organizing or obtaining vaccines for instructors or other employees, nor do we encourage any of our SoulCycle employees to pursue vaccine priority as educators.
Likewise, in a memo sent to employees on Monday, the CEO of SoulCycle wrote that instructors should not try to get the vaccine on the grounds that they are educators. A former employee sent me a part of the company-wide memo:
… SoulCycle instructors do not qualify as educators to receive the vaccine based solely on their roles at SoulCycle and should not attempt to receive the vaccine unless they are eligible to do so, based on appropriate state regulations.
Inside the company, some of Griffith’s fellow instructors are upset because she apparently skipped the line. Some called her specifically in her post, questioning her decision. A source with knowledge of Griffith pilots on the outer location of the SoulCycle roof in Tribeca said that several of its regular passengers boasted of being vaccinated, while others refused to comply with on-site masking protocols, a stress point for employees. that need to be around them.
A current instructor told me that Griffith’s post reflected badly on the company and that it showed the gap between SoulCycle’s words and his actions. This aligns with SoulCycle’s image issues of late. After reporting on the company for months, I found that employees complained about a toxic work environment that includes its affluent clientele acting rudely, internal fights between instructors and a system that feeds on exclusivity while preaching values such as community and unity.
“This is exactly the problem with Soul,” a current instructor told me. “We need to practice what we preach. We are very angry, especially since you know that bankruptcy is a big risk in this market. “
Like many group fitness brands, SoulCycle has seen the pandemic crush its revenue in the United States because its studios cannot open. Griffith’s critics argued that this decision, arguably the company’s most famous instructor, was a bad appearance for a company that was already struggling financially.
Although Griffith received his dose, the country is failing to get people
But the overreaction to Griffith and SoulCycle represents a bigger story too.
There are probably many people out there who have never taken a SoulCycle course before, nor do they know Griffith, but they know what the brand stands for: a luxury for wealthy and well-connected people. The fact that Griffith can get the vaccine symbolizes how easy it can be for the rich to get what they want, first of all, especially those who qualify under the New York guidelines and haven’t yet been able to make an appointment.
The fact that Griffith apparently got his first dose of the Moderna vaccine so easily in the midst of confused state implementation and national chaos shows how inequality emphasizes this pandemic. And how being rich and well connected can put you ahead of people who, due to age, need and vulnerability, have been considered a priority by health authorities.
The question of who “deserves” the vaccine is complicated, and some experts argue that we should vaccinate as many people as possible without so much concern for the request. But if there is no order, it damages the system. And it remains true that the vaccine is in demand, and alongside Griffith’s account there are stories about how difficult it has been for people, especially older and colored people, to make appointments.
A CNN article details how difficult it was for the writer to get the vaccine for her parents and how the Arizona Department of Health lost her appointment records. Similar stories about failures and struggles exist in New York City and South Carolina. In Jackson Heights, New York City, a Covid-19 vaccination site aimed at a hard-hit Latin community saw its nominations predominantly swallowed up by whites from outside the community, CNN reported. There are also reports of vaccines being discarded and shortages.
On Monday, Griffith posted an apology on Instagram.
“I want to apologize wholeheartedly for my recent action on receiving the vaccine,” she wrote. “I made a terrible error of judgment and that’s why I’m really sorry.”
Griffith did not allow comments on the post. It is still on the company’s agenda.