Sunday, February 7
Mid-afternoon and it’s snowing to beat the band. Three to seven inches are predicted. The stuff is sticking to the boxwoods like big clumps of cotton. But we won’t need to go out for a couple of days, unless we get a vaccination appointment, which is about as likely as winning the Powerball jackpot.
This morning Emily and I each checked New York State and City websites, along with those of druggists CVS and Walgreen’s. At one instant, the Walgreen’s site said there were appointments available in Manorville, which is about an hour’s drive from here. But you have to keep clicking, certifying that you are eligible, haven’t had the virus, and so forth. Before long, it said the closest place with vaccine appointments was in Connecticut.
The whole exercise is preposterous—frustrating, demeaning, and futile.
Everyone is maddened by it: the vaccine rollout, they call it…more like a limp-out or maybe a crawl-out.
The whole thing reminds me of a discussion years back at McGraw-Hill about employee profit-sharing. Those were fat times, and thanks to Silicon Valley, sharing the takings with the hired help was becoming more common. I’ve got mine, the BusinessWeek publisher remarked, thinking he’d made a great joke. Nobody applauded.
So, them that’s got shall get, them that’s not shall lose. To those in charge of vaccine distribution, the population only matters in an election year. Biden needs to demonstrate otherwise…and quickly.
Dinner: chicken paprikash, noodles, and a green salad.
Entertainment: Episodes of The Sinner on Netflix.