How Not To Get A Covid Vaccine

I read a few weeks ago that the CDC recommends two doses of a covid vaccines this winter for people at high risk of serious disease. So having been vaccinated in September, I asked my primary care provider if I should get a second dose.

Yes, good idea.

Can you write me a prescription?

You won’t need one, just go to the pharmacy.

Okey dokey. I went off to the pharmacy. 

There’s no one on staff who can give it to you right now, but you can make an appointment.

I was already so aggravated about the rumpus over the underfilled prescription that I walked away to calm down, and left my always supportive spouse to continue the conversation; she made dates for the next morning.

Next morning: a phone call.

We can’t give you the vaccine, it has to be at least six months after the previous dose.

The CDC: the minimum interval is two or three months, depending on the manufacturer. I have no idea which kind I had last time, but it’s been almost five months; I contact my doctor. She writes a script. I go back to the pharmacy.

How old are you?

62.

We can’t give you the vaccine, you have to be over 65.

I have a prescription from my doctor because I’m at higher risk.
You need to have a condition.
My doctor said she sent a prescription, did you get it? 

We have it. mYou need to have a reason. What condition do you have?
You need to know that?
Yes.*

There’s a line behind me now. She takes my deets, gives me a form to fill out, and goes off to run my insurance information.

It’s expired.
The policy I had expired, but I’ve had a new one since December. It’s on record. I’ve filled several prescriptions.
They’re saying it’s expired now.
…..
…..
Do you have a card?

I hand it over. She huddles with three or four other pharmacy employees. The line behind me is getting long. She comes back, hands me a printout.

Your insurance won’t cover it.

How much is it?

Over a hundred dollars, I think. I’ll go check.

…. 

$245.

I look at my very patient spouse, who has been waiting, patiently, behind me. The line is about ten deep by now. She nods. I get out my credit card. 

JD Vance’s Words are Weapons

I listened, repeatedly, to JD’s convo about “the postmenopausal female,” so you don’t have to.

The most disturbing part of Vance’s exchange with Eric Weinstein, in my mind: neither man displays any interest in what the two women — Usha Vance, Esq., and her mother, Dr. Lakshmi Chilukuri (whom I am naming in part because neither is named in the clip) — wanted or needed. 

The child is also unnamed: Vance calls Ewen, his oldest son, “this baby” and “our son.”

Weinstein says that providing free child care is “the whole purpose of a postmenopausal female.” 

Unlike “woman,” which refers specifically to a human, “female” is also used for animals. Long-horned beetles, t-rexes, dolphins, gorillas, and more. Referring to people of color, and especially women of color, in animal terms has a long history. I’m not surprised — Vance has made, and endorsed, plenty of racist statements — but I’m still dismayed.

Vance clearly says “yes” after the host finishes saying the words. His response comes almost on top of the word “female,” but in plenty of time after “post-menopausal,” which Weinstein fumbles, and which can only refer to a woman, and before Weinstein finishes the sentence with “in theory.” 

Weinstein goes on to say that free child care is “a weird unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.” Vance starts to speak, pauses to interject “yeah,” and continues.

Weinstein uses singular “they” to refer to Provost Chilukuri. Hang on — the ossified right thinks using “they” in place of “she” or, preferably, “he” opens the door to gay and trans rights, which they find pornographic. Ooops.

Vance’s idea that prioritizing earning power over everything else is “hyper-liberalized” and “a consequence of fundamental liberalism” that has “abandon[ed] … Aristotelian virtue politics for a hyper market-oriented way of thinking” is almost risible in its foundational wrong-ness. This describes, quite precisely, the Republican Party line since Reagan. 

The speed and vocal register of Vance’s speech suggest gravitas, especially in contrast to Trump’s jumpy, meandering tirades. But listening over and over again made me see just how repetitive and imprecise Vance’s speech really is. He uses big words and learned phrases to gesture casually at concepts, rather than carefully staking claims and providing evidence to develop arguments. Vance’s words are projectiles, designed — deployed — to destroy, not to build.