Is it better to give than to receive? I wanted to find out if giving the vaccine was as gratifying as receiving it.  Since I already covered what it was like to get my shot, I am sharing my experience of administering COVID-19 shots, something I very much wanted to do, even though it’s not in my job description.  What I learned went beyond the comparison of giving and receiving, into the concrete disparities between private and public health care and the people served by each. 

But first, I got around the not in my job description part by volunteering (i.e., no pay) to administer the shots a few mornings a week. Instead of nice work clothes and a lab coat, I sported scrubs and white sneakers.  How liberating, how comfy.  It really took me back.  Actually the last time I wore scrubs professionally was on a medical mission to Guatemala, but that’s another story.

Here are the specifics on all three vaccines.  Skip to the next paragraph if you already know or are not interested in the nuts and bolts. All 3 of the COVID-19 vaccines are intramuscular injections into the deltoid muscle of the upper arm. At our clinic we have the Moderna which is a 2 dose vaccine, the second dose given 4 weeks after the first.  For a time we also had the Johnson and Johnson Janssen vaccine with is a one and done as they say.  Both are for people aged 18 and above, and the amount in the syringe is the same – 0.5cc. The Pfizer vaccine, which our clinic did not have, has to be mixed with a diluent (a special diluting solution) before being drawn up, and is 2 doses given 3 weeks apart.  The dose each time is a little less in volume than the other 2 vaccines – 0.3 ccs. That one is good for ages 16 and above.  The age ranges may change as the vaccines are undergoing testing for children. I won’t get into the efficacy of each one.  The studies were done in varying conditions. Each one works well enough to prevent the majority of people from contracting the disease, and is even better at preventing severe illness and hospitalization. And that of course, is what we were all most worried about.  Because if contracting COVID meant just a few days of feeling under the weather for everyone, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

As I began writing this, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has been all over the news due to a rare clotting condition exhibited by 6 women within 2 weeks of getting the vaccine, one of whom died and one who is in serious condition. That’s 6 cases among around 7 million people who received the vaccine.  When I learned they were all women aged 18-48, I immediately thought of oral contraceptives, which can cause blood clots.  But apparently most of the women were not taking them.  CVST (cerebral venous sinus thrombosis) is a very rare and very serious clotting disorder, which causes both clotting and bleeding.  For now the vaccine is on pause but that reflects an abundance of caution, when you consider the numbers.  The odds of getting that rare side effect are about the same as getting Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) from the flu shot.  According to the CDC, studies suggest a person is more likely to get GBS from actual influenza than the shot.  Just as it is far more likely to get blood clots (and die) from having the COVID-19 illness vs getting the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

This post was intended to be about the experience of giving the vaccines, so I will circle back. Every one of the people I inoculated was grateful to be getting the shot and grateful that there was a shot at all.  Nobody cried although I’ve heard that it has happened — tears of joy and relief.  I think the pandemic has made us all more emotional.  When I received my first dose of Moderna in January, it was as close to a religious experience as I think I will ever get.  Being able to bestow that feeling through vaccinating others amplified the exhilaration, the hopefulness.  So yes, in this case, it is even better to give than receive.

As a vaccination site, we are open to the community at large, anyone whom the state deems eligible to receive the vaccine. This should be true at all sites who applied to be vaccinators,  but in the local private practices at least, when they did have supply, they sent emails to their own patients with very specific admonishments not to forward the email. Point made. Conversely, in addition to our own patients, our waiting room fills with people who have never set foot in a community health center before, although most likely their housekeepers and nannies and landscapers have.  There was a little sheepishness at times, about snagging the vaccine in a place like ours, but also, I hope, a new appreciation for what we do.  To a person, they expressed surprise about how “nice” our offices were, how clean and professional.  A little insulting, to be sure (what were they expecting, a MASH unit?), but I hope, as they sat (socially distanced and masked, of course) among our regular patients in the waiting room, their eyes were opened.  I hope they realized how important high quality health care is to the people they employ or who serve them at stores and restaurants and grocery stores.  How important it is that these people have a “nice”, clean, professional and safe place to go.  Because the state of their health affects the health of the community as a whole.  And never has this been truer, nor the stakes higher, than during a pandemic.