Vaccination

Covid-19 vaccine update:

Carole has had both her shots — several weeks ago, in fact, through her employer. She works for Burlington Housing Authority and they have a population of elderly residents in some of their buildings, so as it happened, the state went ahead and offered all BHA staff shots at the same time those elderly residents were getting theirs. Nice!

I had to wait until this past Monday to get my shot — I didn’t qualify as part of any priority group so I had to wait until Vermont allowed the 50+ cohort to register. My appointment was for Monday, April 5 at Montpelier High School, about a half hour from my house and less than a mile from the Vermont state capitol. It was apparently State Employee Volunteer Day at the Montpelier vaccination center; lots of the people doing non-medical tasks (like reading off screening questions, taking temps at the door, checking people in and out) were state employees who had been given paid time away from their jobs to go help out. I was signed in, for example, by Vermont’s current Lieutenant Governor, Molly Gray.

I received the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine instead of one of the two-dose vaccines — that was just what the vaccination center had that day. No need for me to go back and get another shot, so I guess I should circle April 19 on my calendar as the day our household will theoretically be 100% safe, or as safe as safe can be.

For some strange reason, a New England Cable News reporter and cameraperson singled me out from the dozens of other people arriving for their shots and filmed me at several stages of the process. I got filmed getting my temperature taken with one of those forehead thermal scanners, got filmed getting checked in by Molly Gray, got filmed getting the shot, and got filmed in the hallway outside after it was all over and asked my opinion about what the governmental employees volunteering meant to me and how I felt about getting vaccinated. I gave permission and signed a release and all that, but I still don’t know why they looked at me out of all the others and said “Him!” Perhaps I just looked so utterly completely middle-of-the-road safe/boring that they figured I’d make for a good vox pop.

The footage aired that night on local NBC channel WPTZ and on the NECN cable network itself. If you’re really, really bored you can watch the WPTZ version here. The NECN version, which is a bit longer and also features Vermont’s Governor, Phil Scott, getting his vaccination, is here.