On vaccine shaming
Blame the system, not the individual.
It’s somehow March again tomorrow, even though it feels like last March never ended. It’s been nearly a year since the pandemic upended our lives, when everything shut down and we began sheltering at home.
As we reach that one year mark, there’s also been some good news: people are starting to get the vaccine. The light at the end of the tunnel is near. I was lucky enough to get my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine this week — I’m eligible in New York state, which is now allowing those with high risk health conditions to get the vaccine — and I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. This summer, when hopefully most people will be vaccinated, will be great.
But as the vaccine rollout has begun, so too has the vaccine shaming. Many people who have gotten the vaccine and joyfully posted about it on social media have then been faced with criticism from strangers who question their eligibility to get the vaccine, sometimes wrongly assuming the person is ineligible, and attack them for “line jumping” and getting the vaccine early instead of letting someone more “deserving” get it first.
A famous SoulCycle instructor was criticized for getting it. TV host and fitness instructor Amanda Kloots got an extra vaccine that a vaccine site had left over and had to use up. NY1 anchor Jamie Stelter, who has a high-risk health condition on the approved list in New York state, was inundated with comments like “you sure don’t look 65” on Instagram after getting it. Other young people with invisible illnesses have been shamed on social media by those who can’t see their illness and thus think they are jumping the line.
Shaming people for getting the vaccine — a good thing — is reflective of our favorite American habit: blaming individuals for their choices and actions instead of the system.
When it comes to the vaccine rollout, many people are angry — how is it fair, they say, that a 35-year-old in Brooklyn can get it before their 90-year-old grandparents in California?
It’s not fair. And they’re not wrong to feel frustrated that they, or their loved ones, can’t get access to the vaccine. But the culprit behind that unfairness isn’t the individual who got the vaccine, it’s the system that made the vaccine distribution so uneven in the first place.
The rollout of the Covid vaccines in the US has been unquestionably terrible. Every state has made their own rules for who qualifies, supply has been frustratingly limited, government signup websites have been shoddily built, available appointments have all been completely booked, and messaging from state, local, and federal governments has been disorganized and unclear. Despite the shortages everywhere, there have also been reports of unused doses being thrown out and doctors getting fired for giving unused doses out before they expired. And this chaotic rollout is the result of actions and decisions that started taking place long before the current presidential administration took office, too.
America’s messy vaccine rollout is a result of the system we’ve built. In America, the onus is on individuals — for everything. We take pride in self-reliance and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” (without acknowledging the generational wealth that often makes such bootstrapping possible). We fetishize individualism and place a stigma on taking “handouts” from the government. And so, we don’t dare to imagine that our government could do better, could do more, that the system itself should be better. Instead, we blame individuals for their choices.
This has been a theme throughout the pandemic: shaming people for not social distancing, for not wearing masks properly or at all, for attending weddings or traveling, for seeing friends, for dining indoors at reopened restaurants. Instead of being mad at our government for unclear guidance and mixed messaging, we have shamed individuals for their choices because we’re frustrated, and it’s easy to get on social media and judge and yell at people from behind a screen.
While vaccine shaming may feel good briefly as an outlet for channeling one’s frustration, it doesn’t solve the problem. Everyone deserves the vaccine, everyone needs the vaccine, and hopefully we will live in a world where we all have access to the vaccine soon.
And declining the vaccine doesn’t necessarily do anyone any good, either. Ethicists and health experts say that declining the vaccine when you’re offered a chance doesn’t mean that it will go to someone who needs it more. So if you’re offered a chance to get the vaccine, you should take it.
Good things to read
The rise of the wellness app, New York Times Magazine.
America’s health will soon be in the hands of very minor internet celebrities, The Atlantic. On influencers pushing the vaccine.
To all the clothes I’ve loved before, Vox. On the year without fashion.
Martha Stewart is the original influencer, Harper’s Bazaar. This Martha profile is FULL of gems.
Why your brain feels broken, New York Times. So I’m not the only one who can’t remember what I was saying mid-sentence!!
Britney Spears was never in control, The Cut.
How restaurants survive the long pandemic winter, The New Yorker.
Perfectionism and Covid don’t mix, Zora/Medium.
The vintage furniture sellers of Instagram are burned out, Curbed.
Motherhood in America is a multilevel marketing scheme, Gen/Medium.
Patricia Lockwood’s infinite scroll, Vulture. I have just started reading Patricia Lockwood’s new book and it is, of course, brilliant.
Good things to cook
This week I made these sheet pan meatballs with sausage and tomatoes, baked harissa salmon with lemony kale and quinoa, and these Asian-inspired pork lettuce wraps, sesame tofu and broccoli.
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