Waiting for a Covid-19 Vaccination?

Don’t Do This!

Pennsylvania, where I live, is currently in phase 1A of what the State Department of Health refers to with wild optimism as the vaccine “rollout.”  I am included in this phase, along with others age sixty-five or over, and those with serious health conditions.

I spent several hours with –yep, wild optimism – scouring my area for a hospital, pharmacy, or medical facility where I could register for the first shot.  Before long, I had assembled an impressive list of telephone numbers and websites which allowed me to get in line, which I did.

Then I waited.  

A few days went by.  I am a restless person who likes to make things happen, so when I got tired of waiting, I shared my research results through a neighborhood website.  I knew the facility would screen applicants; maybe people who needed the vaccine more urgently than I did would be able to schedule an appointment.

Before long people began sharing their good-news stories. 

“I got my eighty-six year-old mom an appointment,” one woman wrote.

“My husband is ninety and has diabetes.  We were finally able to make an appointment.”

“My wife has COPD we managed to get her vaccinated just before the last snow storm hit.”

Every time I heard a success story, I thought, that’s one person who will sleep better tonight. Each appointment was a victory, a tiny light bobbing on a sea of darkness and despondency.  It felt so good that I started questioning my motives.  What if I was doing this to prove to myself how noble I am?   That was worrisome, until I remembered Casaubon, the hapless scholar in George Eliot’s majestic novel, Middlemarch.

 “We must not inquire too curiously into motives … they are apt to become feeble in the utterance,” he announced sonorously.

I stopped inquiring into my motives.  If others were getting vaccinated, that was good enough.  In the meantime, I would, as my late husband used to counsel, “possess my soul in patience.”  (Or “patients,” as the case may be.)

Vaccines here are scarce, and most people are still waiting.  But two days ago, my own appointment call finally came through.  Unfortunately, I missed it because I was updating the operating system on my cell phone.  I called back, but it was too late.  The hospital was no longer taking names.  

I couldn’t believe it; I had avoided updating my operating system for two years!  Why did I decide to do it at the precise moment the call came through? 

There is a moral to this story, beyond the joy of altruism and the feebleness of motives in the utterance: never update your cell phone’s operating system when you’re waiting for an important call.

In the meantime, Pennsylvania is getting ready to – wait for it – rollout vaccination clinics.

All we need now are the vaccines.