Wednesday, March 31, 2021

The Minnesota Vaccine Rush Of 2021

So yesterday/Tuesday was the first day Minnesotans 16 and up can get a vaccination, and it doesn't matter if you have any underlying health conditions or not.  That means I can now (legally/ethically/morally?) can finally get a shot under the eyes of the state.  And since everyone in my immediate family has already gotten at least one shot, I can finally cure myself of FOMO.

Well, not yet.  I anticipated that come yesterday everybody would be flooding clinics, pharmacies and the state health care lines to sign up for one.  I don't know if that really was the case; much of the news around here is centered around the Derek Chauvin trial, as it should be, and I really didn't pay attention to the news anyway.  I figure I can wait.  I don't want to deal with the craziness, and if I have been able to dodge corona for this long, what's another two-to-four weeks?

I'm still not quite sure how I'll know when I get the anointed time to get my vaccine.  I have been looking around online, but everyone's saying they don't have any shots available right now.  And clinics are saying don't call us, we'll call you.  In the meantime I've been trying to log onto my online health care chart in case a nurse only left a message in my cloud file saying I am now eligible to get a COVID-19 shot, and I got locked out of an account for one of the clinics I go to.  Stupid me, I reset the password for it just the night before.  Now I have to call them, eesh.

As that's going on, I have to beat back both of my parents as they're saying, "Have you gotten your shot yet?  Have you gotten your shot yet?"  The Convention Center wouldn't give me one when I drove Father to get his second on Saturday, thank God.  I want to be able to do this (without getting the coronavirus, of course) by myself and without them friggin' gettin' all up in my business.  But the more this drags on, the more opportunities for them to say, "Have you gotten your shot yet?"  And if they somehow arrange a shot for me, I'll resent them for a long, long time, even if that's what I should do after all.

I'll be honest: I want the Pfizer.  I shouldn't act like a consumer, I know that.  But if things keep changing like they are, soon there will be more supply than demand.  That won't then make me just a recipient; that would make me a consumer.  So even though I'll be warned not to, I'll go around to pharmacies and clinics and ask, "Hey, which company vaccine do you have?"  And I don't know if Pfizer's better than Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.  I want the Pfizer because I have stock in Pfizer.  That's all.  Hope that doesn't make me shallow.

Ironically enough, however: The clinic for which I am locked out of my online chart left a message for me to a question about getting Mother a second shot when Walgreen's wouldn't schedule one for her.  In that message, the nurse answering my now-not-needed request blurted out, without me asking, that this clinic gets Pfizer.  I am fairly confident that they'll call me once they're ready for me to get my shot.  But I'm still a wee bit scared that a vaccination is waiting for me provided I can get into my chart online and look for a message saying there's been an appointment made for me.  If I don't reply in time, will they give up my space and shot to someone else?  Will that then mean I will have to settle for another clinic or pharmacy, and settle for a different shot?

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