Rant #2,612: One Hit (To the Body)

I do believe that whatever which way you feel about the coronavirus and how we are handling it as a civilization, the best thing you can do about it is to heed all the protocols that we have been asked to follow—the mask wearing, the social distancing—and to make an appointment to get the actual vaccine.
 
I have done that to the letter, and I haven’t gotten the virus, although some people around me have.
 
Maybe I just have a strong enough constitution to ward it off, but happily, my family and I—including my 90-year-old mother—haven’t had the least bit of a problem with the virus. But we know so many other extended family and friends who have battled this thing, and it ain’t pretty.

 
So I decided that after I got my mother her two Pfizer vaccines, that when the time was ready for me to get the vaccine, that I would. My wife and my son are holding off for right now, but I decided that for me, it was the prudent thing to do.
 
Heck, if my mother could get it, why couldn’t I?
 
So when the vaccine became available to my age group last week, I jumped right into it, and unlike the horror I went through to get my mom her shots, my quest was relatively easy, and within a few tries, I secured my shot appointment for last Friday.
 
Little did I know that the cure was going to be worse than the disease (not really, but read on).
 
Here is my description of what happened, which I put up on Facebook and which started a maelstrom of venom, and also some hurrahs, upon its placement:
 
“Anyone get their COVID vaccine shot in Elmont, Long Island? What were your impressions of that operation?
I found it totally, completely inept, poorly set up, and poorly run.
First off, nowhere was it mentioned that you were getting your shot at Belmont Raceway. Perhaps I should have figured since it was in Elmont, but it only said "Northwell Health," so I assumed it was a health facility, which my doctor had told me was the only place I should get this shot, because I am a highly allergic person.
You get there, parking is atrocious at best, and then when you finally find a spot, they put you right on a line to go in.
Then you get put on another line to register and check in
I neglected to mention when I first posted this that when I went to register and check in, they initially could not find my name. I had my registration printout, so I had proof that I registered, everything was in order with that, but somehow, my name went into their database only in reverse order, with my first name as my last name and my last name as my first name!
When that was all cleared up, they then put you on yet another line to get into the vaccination area.
After you get your shot, you are directed to a seated waiting area, where you are to sit and wait for your name to be called--no microphone, just people shouting your name out--and this is supposed to take the required 15 minutes that you have to wait.
For me and everyone else there, it too an hour to call our names. Names were lost, and people were getting hysterical, shouting at workers as if they had any control over this.
When they call your name, you have to wait on still another line to get your second shot appointment.
They called my name after an hour's wait, but I initially would not get on the line because the person ahead of me--who was with two other people--would not put his mask on. I told the people there in no uncertain terms that I was not going to stand behind someone with a mask.
"Put the damn mask on!" I yelled, and the idiot complied, but later on, another person in his entourage took theirs off, with the officials working there literally screaming at the person to put it on her face.
Finally, I was done.
An hour to get there--the Southern State was packed bumper-to-bumper for a while due to work being done on the highway--and then an hour back.
So all told, to get this shot, it was pretty much a good four-hour affair, based on the time I left home and the time I arrived back at home.
But at least I have the first of two shots, the Pfizer shot, which is the one I preferred.
But the inefficiency at Belmont was horrid, and I am so, so happy that my mother did not have to go through this a few weeks earlier.
With her, NUMC in East Meadow, in and out and done in 30 minutes. Twice.
The whole thing at Belmont mirrored the complete chaos that vaccine appointment making has become, and the way they do this is just so ludicrous!
And just think, I have to go through all of this--less making another shot appointment--three weeks from now on April 2!”
 
Someone suggested that I put up this information on a COVOD-19-related message board related to Long Island that is also on Facebook, and I did just that, but the response was not what I thought it would be.

 
Some people lambasted me for having the audacity to put up such a message. They believed that such a message would dissuade others from getting the shot.
 
I was the devil in some people’s eyes, and they really let me have it but good.

I was forced to defend myself, mad to feel very small, and I really could not believe the messages that people put up raking me over the coals for posting about this very negative experience that I had.
 
My message was eventually taken down twice by the administrators of that site, but I was not daunted, in particular when others contacted me and told me that they had had the same exact experience there that I had.
 
I was given an email address to report what I experienced directly to Northwell Health, which I did, and as I said, I was not daunted.
 
I continued to put up one or two other messages about the experience, and for whatever reason, the administrators of that site actually let them go by, and after two more messages from me were placed there, the tide had turned, and I was actually being thanked for alerting people about the experience I had.
 
Here is another message that I put up there, that the administrators allowed to be put up. I was very gracious, but my message was the same:
 
“Just to sum up, a few people have gotten back to me about their similar horrible experiences at Elmont. And yes, I have contacted Northwell Health about what went in there on Friday.
Others have told me that they had a great experience there.
My advice would be to get the vaccine, and get it where you can, but prepare fir anything.
Again, at NUMC, my 90year-old mother was waited maybe on a single line and was in and out in a half hour each time. Me, at Belmont, in and out the first time in about two hours with one line after another to wait on and total chaos, from the moment I checked in until I got out of there ... and it wasn't just me, I wish I had taken video of what was going on in there.
Take your pick, if you can.
And whatever the moderator says here, this is important information, in particular if you are elderly and/or infirm. If I would have taken my mother here, I don't know if she would made it through the gauntlet of problems that I ran into that day.
I will add that the staff was 1,000-percent professional through the entire time I was there.
If you feel that people don't need to know this, and everything is rosy at these sites, then you really need to read and absorb what I have written here.
Thanks for hearing me out.”
 
Look, I am an administrator of a few sites, too, and it can at times be a challenging job.
 
But I would never take down a post that warned people to beware of something like this. Most of the posts I have personally taken down are ones that are nasty and vindictive and use filthy language … not anything like the posts that I put up.
 
But anyway, if you can take away anything from my posts and the reaction to them, it is that the vaccination process remains not only controversial, but depending where you go for it, it is either a breeze or a horror.

 
But the main thing is to get the shot, no matter where you might stand politically or ethically on how the shots are being handled or whether you think the virus is some mind-control fantasy or not.
 
I got it, have suffered absolutely no ill effects from it, and I await my second shot … with a lot of trepidation, not because I am scared of the shot and its after-effects, but because the administration of this shot where I received it was so poor.
 
But whatever the case, I am halfway there to the finish line, and I do feel good about that!