The COVID Two-Step
When the curtain comes down on the COVID story (assuming it ever does come down) the fundamental tales will include stories about Trump’s bungling of the science for presumed political gain (ironic given that it was probably his ultimate undoing), the testing challenge (including Trump’s moronic argument that less testing would lead to a better story through under-reporting), the development of therapeutics (overshadowed by the Sarah Cooper tweets mimicking Trump’s bleach-up-the-butt program) and finally the Warp Speed development of the vaccine with all its election-day promises followed by its complete lack of preparation for roll-out of a viable inoculation plan (hampered by Trump’s unwillingness to give any money to state and local governments for anything, thereby thwarting the very program he had pushed as the “herd mentality” solution). It’s been quite a ride and while we are all worried about the impact of the COVID variants, we are more buoyed by the improving numbers that are dangling before our eyes right now. Some specialists say we should not be so anxious to let up our guard and that the worst is yet to come due to the mutations of the virus. I don’t know if its the improved numbers, the increasing vaccination rate (now up to 3 million/day) or just the presence of a steady hand on the national tiller with Biden instead of the idiotically irresponsible Donald Trump, but we are all seeing light at the end of the tunnel and presuming that it is not on onrushing train that will flatten us for good.
Easily the biggest thing we can do for ourselves and others, besides proper masking and social distancing, is getting our double-dose vaccines. It has become somewhat of a national pastime trying to figure out how to keep up with the vaccine protocols and prioritization, and then how exactly to go about getting the shots in our arms. Given that the CDC guidelines are the national standard, one would logically think that each state would operate in the same manner, but that is simply not so. But at least each state is doing things consistently, right? Again, not so. Well, at least at the local county level things are being administered the same way. Oops, yet again, not the case. OK, so if we are down to a specific provider or healthcare system, at least they are all on the same page. Like the old joke about the two strings that walk into the bar…I’m afraid not.
We have all watched squeamishly over the last day while Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York State and the man who was lauded as the model of proper political management and truth-telling during the handling of the pandemic, was getting slammed on cable news for lying about the rate of infection and death specifically in nursing homes. What can one say other than, “Et tu Andrew?”
As for the vaccine, we all know that until the J&J single-shot vaccine becomes widely available and gains in efficacy, the path to vaccination with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines requires that we all get two doses separated by three or four weeks, depending on the brand. Kim and I are both Moderna junkies, not that we consciously chose that, but because that’s what was available for us each when we went for our shots. This is totally a “beggars can’t be choosers” program and we took what we were offered. We also took the location of the inoculations that were available to us. For me, as a 65+ cohort member, I was legitimately eligible and perhaps even more so by virtue of my weight and medicated high blood pressure. I feel healthy and I feel very strong in terms of immunosuppression, but the statistics say I am more vulnerable. It was my daughter who butted in and told me which website to go on to get an appointment for my first vaccination. I did exactly what she suggested and got the appointment and drove the thirty miles to get the vaccination. That all went tickety-boo and I never even had a sore arm much less any other reaction.
Kim’s path to her first vaccine shot was a bit murkier. We are liberals and we believe in social justice, but it seems more than a little arbitrary who is getting vaccinated and who is not. It’s like one of those bad apocalyptic movies where one family is chosen for survival and their neighbors are not. Well, our neighbors volunteer at a hospital (or are at least registered as such) so they got included in the first wave of first responders to get the vaccine. I think that convinced us that we needed our own vaccination access plan. It came in the form of our friend Oswaldo who has a friend who has a father-in-law who has a small nursing home in Burbank and who could get Oswaldo on the vaccination roster. Through Oswaldo’s pleading, Kim got on the roster as a nursing home aide, so we went up to Burbank (it was one of those last minute calls in the morning….get over her and you get the drugs….things). We did and she did while I roamed the neighborhood for a bathroom in which to pee.
As for the second doses it is a bit more challenging. Some of the inoculation sites automatically scheduled your second dose appointment when you got your first dose and others did not. Mine did not. I was given the old “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” message as my four weeks rolled forward. I notified my healthcare provider to notify them (they were looped in automatically in the first dose registration process) and they assured me that they had me covered from here. When I checked in with the website of the county center that gave me my first shot they still said I would get an email a week before I was due…but it was less than a week and no email so far. Meanwhile, my healthcare network was emailing me every day encouraging me with a boilerplate script to sign up for my second dose. I finally did and was allowed to secure an appointment, but the confirmatory email indicated it was a first dose despite my indicating it was actually supposed to be a second dose. I called the COVID number for my healthcare provider many times over two days and wound up with two supervisors telling me I would not be allowed to get my second dose at their facility despite my appointment and I had two supervisors telling me the exact opposite and that if I had my CDC card (which I did), they would give me my second dose with no problem. Who to believe?
Well, I purposefully booked my appointment on the first day (the 20th) of the range of dates given to me to get my booster dose. That was so that I would have four days to fix the problem if they rejected me. I have subsequently gotten that email from the place that gave me the first dose and despite an annoying browser cookie problem, I was able to make an appointment on the fourth day for my second dose. So, now I have a Plan A and a back-up Plan B.
As for Kim, we are planning a return trip to Burbank for her and Oswaldo’s second dose. This time I will consider catheterizing myself for the journey. The nursing home in suburban Burbank is populated with all southeast Asians, so to say that a Venezuelan like Oswaldo and a Wagnerian singer like Kim stick out is an understatement. But nonetheless, we are expecting that they will have no problem doing the COVID two-step to their second dose. I mean we all want to be on the right side of this whole herd thing, don’t we.