On being vaccinated against COVID-19

Today I observed the 90^th anniversary of Leonard Nimoy’s birth by doing the logical thing and getting vaccinated against COVID-19.  The timing was coincidental.  After spending hours refreshing pages at the Ohio Department of Health website, only to find local appointments already filled, I opted to head downtown to the mass vaccination site at the Wolstein Center.  Setting up the appointment was a snap.

This site is being run by the Ohio National Guard, and I can only say it was a model of efficiency, run like a well-tooled machine at every step in the process.  I can’t imagine a better or more compassionate use of our tax dollars than sites like these - in patriotism filled not with jingoistic chest-thumping, but in the spirit of service and concern for one's fellow Americans.

Parking was readily available, the lot I was directed to only about 1/4^th filled.  Noticing signs admonishing against taking photographs, I was directed to tents near the designated entrance, was asked if I had any symptoms of illness, and handed three pages of information about COVID and the vaccine to be administered: Pfizer.  I then entered the building, was temperature scanned, and directed toward an admittance table where my information was taken.  Then I was directed to the site on the main floor, the very surface on which I’d seen Cleveland State athletes and the Cleveland Crunch, and sent to one of the many carefully distanced chairs that had been set up there.  National Guard personnel then proceeded down each lane of chairs taking information: Had I received any vaccinations within the last two weeks?  Have I ever experienced a reaction from being vaccinated?  Do I have any allergies?  And so forth.  This information was entered into a pad.  Then I was asked when I wanted my next appointment, selected a time, and before I’d had a chance to write myself a reminder note, I received a text notification with my next date.  This was followed in a few minutes by a second Guardsman with a cart on wheels – rather like the carts flight-attendants use to deliver snacks – who handed me my vaccination card and administered the shot. 

Most recipients were happy to be able to receive their poke.  The exception was someone near me who was obviously in a state of anxiety.  The Guardsman who had taken my information summoned some counselors who came by and calmed this person’s fears.  Another thing I noticed about the recipients was that they were overwhelmingly white.  This is very concerning in a majority-minority city like Cleveland.   A better job needs to be done in getting vaccines to those without internet access and addressing understandable concerns in minority communities about the vaccine (many, quite reasonably, have not forgotten the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment).

Within ten minutes of my entering the building, I had been vaccinated.  I then waited in the same chair for the designated 15 minutes to ensure I had no allergic reactions.  I spent that time reflecting on the fine young people who volunteered to protect the United States from “all enemies, foreign and domestic” and serve their country.  It also occurred to me that, despite the xenophobic comments by some, there is no such thing as a “foreign” or a “domestic” virus.  Viruses do not have passports and the spread of disease is the inevitable result of our modern world where international travel is so speedy and so accessible to so many.  There will be more novel viruses in the future, and how we react to them will determine whether we have learned lessons from the disaster known as 2020.  At that point, another Guardsman asked me how I was feeling.  I replied that I felt great and thanked him for being there.  Something then occurred to me, and I told him “You’re probably going to tell your grandkids about this.”  He nodded and mentioned to me this was the second time he had been involved in such an operation – the first was in Africa during the Ebola epidemic.  Then a fourth Guardsman addressed the crowd and asked to let him know if there was anything the Guard could do better – noting that some had already suggested a beer truck outside.  He also mentioned something that I wish to pass along: if there are any who are reluctant to get the vaccine for religious reasons related to personal modesty, the guard has provided several curtained off areas where the recipient will have privacy and be vaccinated by someone of the same gender.  Those of us remaining applauded as he left.  At that point, it was time for me to go, and the procedure for leaving was even easier than it had been for admission.   I drove home with a smile on my face.  But when I got home, I wept.  Tears of joy, tears of pride for my country, tears of relief and hope that this will soon be over.

Vaccines and sanitation are the two primary reasons why average life-expectancy increased so dramatically during the 20^th Century.  Over the past few years, that trend has started to reverse in the United States, and part of the reason is anti-vaccine sentiment led by anti-science hysteria and at least one misleading – and now discredited – study.  It is time for a return to sanity and respect for earned expertise. 

Get the shot.

Why the FDA matters

In recent days, concerns over blood-clotting possibly caused by the Oxford-AstraZenica COVID-19 vaccine have led to the suspension of that vaccine in Europe. 

This is not an issue in the United States, as the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the use of that vaccine.  The three approved vaccines, by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, have yielded an adequate supply so the need for a fourth vaccine is remote here.

As the Pfizer vaccine was entering into final FDA review, then-President Trump, in a demonstration of his usual contempt for the “deep state” tweeted a chest-thumping threat to the head of the FDA: approve the vaccine by the end of that day or be fired.  Since the board was already meeting that night to give approval, Trump’s tweet was pretty meaningless – it was just a way to throw red-meat to his diminishing cadre of followers.  But it still set a bad precedent.  Whatever the urgency of the situation, this kind of threat is the last thing a leader should do – especially as the FDA has already been criticized for allowing the hasty approval of unsafe drugs.  Trump’s tweet was part of a pattern of his attempted dismantling of the Federal government’s regulatory powers. 

The FDA began in 1906 with Theodore Roosevelt’s signing of the Pure Food and Drug Act – a time when pharmacological drugs were unregulated and your corner pharmacist (called a “druggist” back then) could whip up whatever concoction he thought was efficacious.  One can easily imagine what was actually in these drugs, especially as the initial formula Coca-Cola contained trace amounts of Cocaine!  Those who were predisposed to distrust the government repeatedly called for rolling back the FDA’s power to approve or reject drugs for medical use, including homophobe Pat Buchanan who pushed the FDA to allow the use of unsafe drugs for treatment of AIDS.  It’s part of a pattern that included Trump’s touting of Hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment for COVID.  It was a quack treatment with adverse side-effects.  At the risk of their jobs, experts including Anthony Fauci stated that Hydroxychloroquine was not a suitable treatment for COVID.  The lesson is simple: be guided by the science (itself a Latin word for “knowledge”) and defer to the experts, not the soccer mom who gained her ”science” from youtube conspiracy videos.