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She didn’t want to wait.
The healthy 25-year-old Medina moved across the country to live with her parents on the East Coast after her job in the film industry dried up. Anxious to get back to work in complete safety, Medina decided in mid-January to “dive into the vaccine dumpster”.
Although a garbage can, it was not. Rather than rummaging through hospital garbage for vials, Medina staked out a grocery store pharmacy. She wanted to score a remaining vaccine.
She and a friend arrived in the early afternoon, ready to wait. A line formed behind them. Hours later, after the day’s appointments were over, pharmacy staff offered eight remaining shots. Medina and her friend happily claimed two.
“I felt good – and better if it wasn’t wasted,” she told CNN.
Medina is what has been described by many on the Internet as a “vaccine hunter,” or someone who tracks down a pharmacy or vaccination site for leftovers.
They see it as a win-win: they get vaccinated and a precious dose of the Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t end up in the trash. But their gain is also a symptom of a lack of coordination in the US vaccination plan – the initial rollout was much slower than expected, delaying President Joe Biden’s plan for “100 million vaccinations in 100 days.”
The lucky – and privileged – few who get vaccinated early assure that what they are doing isn’t wrong, though it certainly seems unfair to those who don’t have the time or resources to “hunt” theirs.
Unsurprisingly, the hunters have been criticized for “skipping the line”. But the hunters argue that what they are doing is more ethical than letting the vaccines expire.
“It could be a good way for people who haven’t been able to get around the logistical nightmare of registration to just show up and get it,” Medina said.
Vaccine hunt is a ‘solution’ to slow vaccine rollout
The current rate, 1 million vaccinations per week, is far from sufficient to achieve collective immunity by summer 2021.
Vaccine hunting means spending hours, even days, of your life waiting for a dose of an available or unavailable vaccine. It’s a dice game. You need time, money, relationships, and luck to be successful. But some say it’s worth it.
Brad Johnson, a medical student at Tulane University, wanted to make vaccine research a bit easier.
He said he got the idea after a friend living in Israel told him about Facebook groups in the country where residents tell each other about pharmacies that have extra doses.
“When there is a surplus of doses about to expire, they skip the vaccination schedule and just gave it to anyone,” he told CNN.
So about three weeks ago, Johnson made a tool like this for New Orleans. The group now has nearly 600 members.
Johnson said he had heard of a few members who had managed to locate the remaining vaccines for themselves or their parents.
The Facebook group is Johnson’s attempt to correct what he called a “patchwork of chaos” in the US vaccine distribution plan.
Biden has an ambitious goal of delivering “100 million vaccines in 100 days.” It remains to be seen whether he will succeed, given that he has been in the post for less than a month. Some health officials believe its target is too modest as Covid-19 cases continue to climb unhindered.
The ethical conundrum of the vaccine hunt
Because the vaccine is in high demand and so difficult to obtain – including for those eligible to receive their vaccine – there is a sense of unfairness when otherwise healthy people get it, even if they don’t fly. technically doses to people who need them, said Melissa Goldstein, associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
“There is this sense of injustice, although we can’t necessarily explain why,” Goldstein, who studies bioethics, told CNN.
And this situation is even different from that of “entrepreneurial” vaccine researchers, like Medina and Johnson, who are looking for the remaining doses.
“Can we say entrepreneurship is an absolute mistake?” Goldstein said. “It’s difficult, because we have a capitalist, merit-based system. We encourage people to network, to be disjointed, persistent, determined to get what they want.”
There is also a privilege of having the time and resources to spend hours researching the remaining doses, Goldstein said. If only those who can afford it can get vaccinated early, disparities in vaccination rates will only get worse.
Johnson said some members of the Facebook group have even crossed state borders to get vaccinated.
It’s not an ideal solution, he said. But when “motivated people” are ready to be vaccinated, even if not when they have been nominated by their condition, Johnson said he believes they should.
“I am completely in favor of introducing vaccines into weapons and not letting them sit,” he said.
How to make early vaccination fair
Medina’s vaccine quest took place over three days. She asked CNN not to disclose her location or the pharmacy where she received the vaccine so as not to bombard them with potential “vaccine hunters”.
There were others like her, spending most of the afternoon waiting.
Her second dose is scheduled for late February.
Medina has no qualms about her decision – she works a freelance rather than a full-time job, so she was able to spend whatever time it took to get shot.
“I’m really in a privileged position, socio-economically, as I can wait all day for this vaccine,” she said. “These vaccination centers need to do a better job and find a way to vaccinate the communities they are supposed to vaccinate.”
There are certain methods, Goldstein said, that could make early vaccinations slightly more equitable.
Johnson is also doing his part. After weeks of trying to reach the Louisiana Department of Health, he said he finally contacted them. Now, he said, he’s working with state health officials to better coordinate who gets the remaining vaccines in the state.
He hopes they can create an official waiting list for vaccines that prioritizes healthcare workers, the elderly and essential workers.
For now, however, he’s backing anyone who wants to get the shot – as long as they don’t really skip the line.
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