The vaccination campaign in the United States has steadily managed to pick up its pace, and around 1.2 million Americans are now being inoculated each day. But there are hiccups.At a time of widespread frustration over the troubled start to the campaign, episodes of ineptitude, selfishness and greed are drawing attention. While they may be few and far between, they give a glimpse into the behavior of some during the greatest health crisis in a century.
| In Philadelphia this week, a plan to distribute vaccines went awry after the city used an organization called Philly Fighting Covid — which describes itself as a group of “college kids” and was founded last year by a 22-year-old graduate student — to run the state’s largest inoculation site. |
| The city eventually severed ties with the group after it moved to switch from nonprofit status to a for-profit company and changed its data privacy policy to allow it to potentially sell data about patients, and after allegations surfaced that the CEO pocketed vaccine doses and 18- and 19-year-olds were vaccinating one another without supervision. |
| In Houston, the focus of vaccine outrage has been on the still-unfinished story of Dr. Hasan Gokal. He was accused last week of stealing a vial of coronavirus vaccine from a public inoculation site he was supervising, and was fired and charged with a misdemeanor. |
| Dr. Gokal’s lawyer told The Houston Chronicle that his client noticed that a vial was left over at the end of the day and was going to spoil in a few hours. Rather than let the doses go to waste, he said Dr. Gokal administered doses to eligible people, including his wife. (A Texas judge dismissed the theft charge on Monday, but the county’s top prosecutor said the case would most likely be presented to a grand jury.) |
| Not all of the stories of vaccine flubs are frustrating — some are even heartwarming. |
| When public health workers found themselves stuck in a snowstorm on an Oregon highway this week, with six doses of the Moderna vaccine set to expire, they began walking from car to car, asking stranded drivers if they wanted to be vaccinated on the spot. |
| Most drivers laughed and declined the doses, but six people eventually signed up for a shot. |
| “We had one individual who was so happy, he took his shirt off and jumped out of the car,” said Michael Weber, the public health director in Josephine County, Ore. He called it “one of the coolest operations” he had ever been a part of. |
| “Our No. 1 rule right now,” he added, “is nothing gets wasted.” | ||
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