My COVID Vaccine Experience Government at Its Best!

On a nearly daily basis, we read or hear of tragic stories about people around the country, often the elderly, who are desperate to become vaccinated but who cannot get into the online system or who end up waiting for hours on the telephone in the hope of speaking to someone who can get them an appointment.

That being acknowledged, I’m sharing my own experience as an example about how Government can work and does work when it’s run in a businesslike fashion.

In early January, I was entitled to make an appointment for the COVID vaccination because I am engaged, on a pro-bono basis, with a medical health facility. Through the online system known as VAMS, I was able to make an appointment with little hassle. The website requested my zip code and then provided me with a number of options for January 7th. I selected a site a mere couple of miles from my house.

Everything about the experience was gratifying, starting with a parking lot dedicated to vaccine recipients and a courteous security staff in the building foyer. Once upstairs, I faced a beehive of activity – but as with a well-run hive, it was perfectly choreographed. And there the analogy stops because the “queen bee” was hardly being waited upon, as happens in the hive. She was the cheerful, gracious and highly efficient supervisor of the operation; simultaneously she managed the staff (many of them obviously new to the system, no surprise given the new and daunting challenge of administering the vaccine was in its infancy) and greeted each arriving “patient”, helping us to log in and then directed us to a specific seat that assured an orderly first come, first served process.

In less than ten minutes, I had been inoculated by a charming nurse, who was so skilled that I was oblivious to the needle entering my arm. It was the Moderna vaccine, she informed me, and presented a card documenting my vaccination. “Be sure to keep this in your wallet,” she advised sweetly as I thanked her and returned to my seat in the waiting room for the required 15 minutes of observation.

Driving home, I was elated to be half-way to protection from COVID and immensely impressed with the entire experience. A sore left arm for two days and a slightly under-the-weather feeling for a few more comprised the extent of my reaction to injection number one.

Over the next couple of weeks, the news from around the country was replete with stories of vaccine shortages, so I was thrilled to be scheduled for dose number two about five weeks after my first.

Then came the clouds. On January 27th an email stated, my appointment had been cancelled. There was no elaboration. I called the number provided and learned to my alarm that the first appointment available was March 15th. HMMMM – I pondered, will it be fully effective nearly ten weeks after shot number one (January 7th)? The COVID monitoring press fairly dripped with opinions about the efficacy of the drug over varying periods between doses, leaving me troubled.

Only a day later, an email arrived from Community Health Center, where I had been scheduled for the second injection. It is reprinted here verbatim, including the exclamation point.
“Greetings Dear Patricia,” it started. “We hope this message finds you well. We are happy you received your first dose of Moderna COVID vaccine and we know you are anxious to get the second dose. Yesterday, we had to send you an email cancelling your second appointment. This was necessary due to new information we had about our vaccine supply that comes to us from the state.

We are now ready to rebook your appointment—and we are going to try and book it just as close to the date and time originally scheduled as possible. We will send you an email or text with your new appointment soon. We appreciate your patience and want to get you that 2nd dose! If you went ahead and made other plans for your second dose and no longer need an appointment, please let us know by responding to this message.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding.”

With their supply restored, they rebooked me for the same date and time – February 13th at 3:40 pm. An equally delightful, if smaller, team of professionals attended to my second vaccination. This time the sore arm was accompanied by a headache, but fortunately, nothing that a couple of Tylenol couldn’t fix.

If this reads simply like a charming story, that is not the intent. The purpose is to share with you an example of the efficacious implementation of a huge challenge facing the State of Connecticut (and for that matter every state in the country) and to credit Governor Ned Lamont for his leadership and planning. Back on October 9th, he announced the appointment of his COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Group. It was assembled in masterful fashion, including an array of community leaders – medical professionals, government officials, academicians, a minister, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO – as well as establishing two important subgroups: one for communications, the other for allocation and distribution of the vaccine.

Many of us who’ve “grown up” in the private sector, entertain a certain skepticism about government’s ability to manage large and complex projects. (You may remember this line as spoken by President Ronald Reagan in 1986: “the nine most frightening words in the English language are ‘I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.’”) Now, impressed by my recent experience, I withdraw that sentiment. The State of Connecticut is proving itself a model of effective management and services to its residents in this moment of grave crisis.

Thank you, Governor, and my thanks also to the legion of dedicated health care workers across the State who are saving lives, one at a time.