For all the money and elbow grease that was poured into developing the COVID-19 vaccines, you’d think that vaccinating people is a top-priority project. But precious few resources have been given to any efforts to actually get the vaccine into people’s arms. We don’t have an organized, efficient system. Instead we have vaccines being wasted in some places and unavailable in others.
I have faith that the process will eventually get ironed out, now that there is actually a national COVID plan. What helps, ironically, is that we’ve seen the ways that each state’s vaccination plan can fail. In New York, for example, hefty fines were meant to deter healthcare providers from vaccinating VIPs who weren’t in priority groups. But under those rules, providers who were left with extra vaccine at the end of the day had to trash the doses instead of being able to give them to employees or patients who weren’t on the list. (The rule has since been amended.)
As a result, Melinda Wenner Moyer writes at the New York Times, sometimes people feel guilty if they’re able to get a vaccine but aren’t in a priority group. Maybe you’re grocery shopping in D.C. when the pharmacy is closing for the day, and are randomly offered a shot. Or maybe you’re able to sign up for an appointment through work, while your more vulnerable elderly relatives can’t get through the state portal.
If this is you, the best thing to remember is that refusing a vaccine doesn’t automatically make it available for somebody who needs it more. The problems that need to be fixed here are systemic, not individual. You can agitate for your workplace or your state to distribute doses more equitably and accept the shot for yourself when your turn comes up.
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If you truly think it’s better to turn down a shot, you might want to check how the doses are being administered, and what will happen to “your” dose if not enough people show up. (That said, if you’re choosing not to take the vaccine because you don’t want to yet, that’s up to you. Safety data so far is very good, but you always have a right to refuse.)
We should be vaccinating the most vulnerable people first, and there’s been a whole debate on that question with room for reasonable disagreement. But importantly, everybody who gets the vaccine is potentially a broken link in a chain of transmission. Maybe you’re not the person who needs protection the most, but if it turns out that the vaccine prevents people from transmitting it to others—which is likely to be the case—then getting the vaccine could still allow you to protect others. Moyer also notes that being protected from the virus also means you’ll be in a better position to care for others who get sick.