She was not willing to wait.
Medina, a healthy 25-year-old, moved across the country to live with her parents on the East Coast after her job in the film industry dried up. Anxious about getting back to work safely, Medina decided in mid-January to go “diving for vaccines.”
Although it was a junk shower, it was not. Instead of digging through junk from a hospital for bottles, Medina set up a grocery store pharmacy. She wanted to get a residual vaccine.
She and a friend arrived there early in the afternoon, ready to wait. A line formed behind them. Hours later, when the appointments were made on the day, pharmacy staff offered eight remaining vaccinations. Medina and her friend cheerfully demanded two of them.
“I felt good about it – and better not go to waste,” she told CNN.
Medina is what many people describe on the internet as a “vaccine hunter”, or someone who stalks a pharmacy or vaccination site for leftovers.
They consider it a win-win: they are vaccinated and a precious dose of the Covid-19 vaccine does not end up in the bin. But their gains are also a symptom of a lack of coordination in the US vaccination plan – the initial implementation was much slower than expected, which delayed President Joe Biden’s plan for ‘100 million vaccinations over 100 days’.
The lucky – and privileged – few who are vaccinated early ensure that they are not wrong, although it certainly feels unfair to those who do not have the time or means to ‘hunt’ themselves.
It is not surprising that the hunters are criticized for jumping the line. But the hunters argue that it is more ethical than letting the vaccines expire.
“It can be a great way for people who could not cope with the logistical nightmare of reporting just to show up and get it,” Medina said.
Vaccination of vaccines is a solution for slow explosion of vaccines
The current rate, 1 million vaccinations per week, is not nearly enough to bring about herd immunity by the summer of 2021.
To hunt for vaccinations is to spend hours, possibly days, of your life waiting for a dose of a vaccine that may or may not be available. This is a crapshoot. You need time, money, connections and luck to succeed. But some think it’s worth it.
Brad Johnson, a medical student at Tulane University, wanted to make the detection of vaccines a little easier.
He said he got the idea after a friend in Israel told him about Facebook groups in the country where residents informed each other about the pharmacies that had extra doses.
“If there are excess doses that will expire soon, they have ignored the vaccination scheme and offered it to just about anyone,” he told CNN.
So, about three weeks ago, Johnson made a tool for New Orleans. The group now has nearly 600 members.
Johnson said he has heard of some members who have successfully detected residual vaccines for themselves or their parents.
The Facebook group is Johnson’s attempt to correct what he called a “patchwork quilt of chaos” in the U.S. vaccine distribution plan.
Biden has an ambitious goal of administering ‘100 million vaccines in 100 days’. Whether he will succeed remains to be seen, as he has been in office for less than a month. Some health officials believe his goal is too modest, as Covid-19 cases continue to climb unhindered.
The ethical mystery of vaccine hunting
Because the vaccine is so high and so difficult to obtain – even for people who are eligible to receive their vaccine – there is a sense of injustice when it comes to healthy people, even if they do not steal doses from people who need it, said Melissa Goldstein, associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, at George Washington University.
“There’s this sense of unfairness, though we can not necessarily explain why it is,” Goldstein, who studies bioethics, told CNN.
And the situation is still different from the “enterprising” vaccine seekers, like Medina and Johnson, who are looking for the remaining doses.
“Can we say that entrepreneurship is absolutely wrong?” Goldstein said. “It’s difficult because we have a capitalist and merit-based system. We encourage people to network, lean, persistent, determined to get what they want.”
There is also the privilege of having the time and means to spend hours for the remaining doses, Goldstein said. If only the people who can afford it can vaccinate early, the differences in the rate of who will be vaccinated will only get worse.
Johnson said some members of the Facebook group even crossed state lines to be vaccinated.
This is not an ideal solution, he said. But when ‘motivated people’ are willing to be vaccinated, even if it is not at the time they were appointed by their state, Johnson said he thinks they should do so.
“I’m all aiming to get vaccines in my arms and not let them sit,” he said.
How to make early vaccination fair
Medina’s vaccine search played out 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 prospective ‘vaccine hunters’.
There were others like her who were waiting for the better part of the afternoon.
Her second dose is scheduled for the end of February.
Medina has no doubt about her decision – she works freelance performances rather than a full-time job, so she could spend the time it took to spend her shot.
“I’m really in a privileged position, like socio-economically, in that I can wait all day for this vaccine,” she said. “The vaccination centers need to do better work and find a way to vaccinate the communities they want to vaccinate.”
There are a few methods, Goldstein said, that can make early vaccinations a little more fair.
Johnson is also doing his part. After weeks of trying to reach the Louisiana Department of Health, he said he finally made it through to them. Now, he said, he is working with state health officials to better coordinate who receives remaining vaccines in the state.
He hopes they can put together an official waiting list for vaccinations that puts health care workers, the elderly and emergency workers first.
For now, however, he supports anyone who wants to get a vaccine, as long as they do not jump the mark.