Getting my first vaccine in a state that has allowed private enterprises to handle vaccine distribution was both easy and illuminating.  I can understand why not everyone wants the vaccine, but it's helpful to know that, in many places, the process is working.

I got my first COVID vaccination on Sunday because I am 65 years old and considered to be in a critical age group.  I weighed the pros and cons and decided to go ahead.  In a country that's still free, everyone must make his decision.

My wife signed up for the vaccination at the local hospital but did not sign me up.  Her appointment was at 1:30 on Sunday afternoon.  We were there early, and from signing in to walking out, we spent less than 30 minutes at the hospital.  It was an efficient and well staffed operation with a lot of people there to help.

While my wife was waiting out the time after her stick, we asked about unused vaccinations.  I was able to put my name and phone number on a daily watch list.  About an hour after we left, the hospital called to say I had a spot.  We went back, and the line was longer this time, as the hospital was calling in last-minute people like me to make certain the vaccines got used.  Anyone desperate to get the vaccine could get put on this call list with the only qualification being willingness and ability to go immediately to the hospital.

I have read horror stories about the long lines and unavailable vaccines.  Charles Sullivan wrote about driving for hours to get a vaccine to avoid New Mexico's slow vaccine rollout.

It's different where I live.  Our small city of about one hundred thousand has several sites where they are being administered.  As is true outside coastal America, it is a city surrounded by a lot of mostly rural counties, so the businesses and services there draw people from the bordering counties.  The news stories have said this single location is administering 800 vaccines a day, every day.

I live in a conservative state with a Democrat governor.  The state's policy is to give the vaccine supplies to businesses and medical facilities that can handle them and let them decide how they will get them into people's arms.  Pharmacies and hospitals are administering them.  Even grocery stores and department stores have them when they have the pharmacy facilities and the staff to do it.

The people in line were interesting.  Most who were waiting were truly thankful that they were in the process of putting this nightmare behind them.  They were excited to be there.  Many of those we saw had significant visible conditions that put them at very high risk should they get this virus.  For more than a year, they had been on the receiving end of relentlessly sold fear.  The people I saw felt they had been thrown a lifeline.

I am happy I went.  It was not so much about the vaccine, although that was central to the process.  I saw something I did not expect.  It gave me some encouragement and hope that lately has been in short supply.  People are being given back a life that had been taken from them.  Their relief and joy could be seen in the eyes behind the masks.

Image: Getting a vaccine by CDC on Unsplash.