She was not willing to wait.
Medina, a healthy 25-year-old girl, moved to the other side of the country to live with her parents on the East Coast after her work in the film industry was over. Anxious to get back to work safely, Medina decided in mid-January to “dive into the vaccine waste”.
Although it was a dump, it was not. Instead of rummaging through hospital waste for bottles, Medina kept an eye on a grocery store. She wanted to get a remaining vaccine.
She and a friend arrived in the early afternoon, prepared to wait. A line formed behind them. Hours later, when the day’s appointments were over, the pharmacy team offered eight remaining vaccines. Medina and her friend happily claimed two of them.
“I felt good about it – and it better not be wasted,” she told CNN.
Medina is what many on the internet have described as a “vaccine hunter”, or someone who peeks at a pharmacy or vaccination post for leftovers.
They see this as a win-win situation: they are vaccinated and a precious dose of the Covid-19 vaccine does not go to waste. But their gain is also a symptom of a lack of coordination in the US vaccination plan – initial implementation was much slower than expected, delaying President Joe Biden’s “100 million vaccinations in 100 days” plan.
The lucky – and privileged – few who are vaccinated early guarantee that what they are doing is not wrong, although it certainly seems unfair to those who do not have the time or resources to “hunt” on their own.
Unsurprisingly, hunters were criticized for “skipping the line”. But hunters argue that what they do is more ethical than letting vaccines expire.
“This can be a good way for people who haven’t been able to get around the logistical nightmare of signing up to just show up and get it,” said Medina.
Vaccine hunting is a ‘solution’ for the slow release of vaccines
The current rate of 1 million vaccinations a week is far from sufficient to achieve collective immunity by the summer of 2021.
The hunt for the vaccine is to devote hours, possibly days, of your life waiting for a dose of a vaccine that may or may not be available. It’s a crapshoot. You need time, money, connections and luck to succeed. But some say it is worth the effort involved.
Brad Johnson, a medical student at Tulane University, wanted to make vaccine tracking a little easier.
He said he came up with the idea after a friend who lives in Israel told him about Facebook groups in the country where residents find out about pharmacies that had extra doses.
“When there is an excess of doses about to expire, they ignore the vaccination schedule and simply offer it to anyone,” he told CNN.
So, about three weeks ago, Johnson made a tool like that for New Orleans. The group now has about 600 members.
Johnson said he heard of some members successfully screening remaining vaccines for themselves or their parents.
The Facebook group is Johnson’s attempt to correct what he called “patchwork of chaos” in the US vaccine distribution plan.
Biden has an ambitious goal of administering “100 million vaccines in 100 days”. We still don’t know if he will succeed, considering he’s been in the job for less than a month. Some health officials believe that their goal is very modest, as Covid-19 cases continue to grow unimpeded.
The ethical puzzle of vaccine hunting
As the vaccine is in high demand and very difficult to obtain – even for people who are eligible to receive it – there is a feeling of injustice when healthy people receive it, even if they are not technically stealing doses from people who need them , said Melissa Goldstein, associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
“There is this sense of injustice, although we cannot necessarily explain why,” Goldstein, who studies bioethics, told CNN.
And this situation is still different from that of “enterprising” vaccine seekers, like Medina and Johnson, who look for leftovers.
“Can we say that entrepreneurship is an absolute mistake?” Goldstein said. “It’s difficult, because we have a capitalist and merit-based system. We encourage people to relate, to be clumsy, persistent, determined to get what they want.”
It is also a privilege to have the time and resources to spend hours looking for remaining doses, Goldstein said. If only people who can afford to be vaccinated early, disparities in the vaccination rate will only become more severe.
Johnson said that some members of the Facebook group even crossed the state boundaries to be vaccinated.
It is not an ideal solution, he said. But when “motivated people” are willing to be vaccinated, even if it is not at the time they were designated by their state, Johnson said he thinks they should do it.
“I am totally in favor of putting vaccines on guns and not letting them stand still,” he said.
How to make early vaccination equitable
The search for the Medina vaccine lasted three days. She asked CNN not to reveal their location or the pharmacy where they received the vaccine so as not to bombard them with would-be “vaccine hunters”.
There were others like her, spending most of the afternoon waiting.
Its second dose is scheduled for the end of February.
Medina has no qualms about her decision – she is freelancing instead of a full-time job, so she was able to spend the time it took to get her photo.
“I am really in a privileged position, socioeconomically, in the sense that I can wait all day for this vaccine,” she said. “These vaccination centers need to do a better job and find a way to vaccinate communities that should be vaccinated.”
There are a few methods, said Goldstein, that can make early vaccination a little more just.
Johnson is doing his part too. After weeks of trying to contact the Louisiana Department of Health, he said he was finally able to reach them. Now, he said, he is working with state health officials to better coordinate who receives the remaining vaccines in the state.
He hopes they can create an official vaccine waiting list that prioritizes health professionals, the elderly and essential professionals.
For now, however, he supports anyone who wants to get a vaccine – as long as he doesn’t get out of line.