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Philly hosted the pope and a Super Bowl parade. Why can’t we figure out the vaccinations? | Jenice Armstrong

We need for the same kind of energy that goes into orchestrating big events to go into ensuring that Philadelphians get vaccinated against COVID-19.

David Burke, (left) and his wife, Stephanie Burke, (right), have been sitting in line for almost 7 hours to receive the vaccination from Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium 24 hour walk-in vaccination at the Temple Liacouras Center. “Right now there is no real way to get it unless you wait out and stay out in these lines,” David said. “It was the perfect opportunity. It’s good it ain't raining or snowing.”
David Burke, (left) and his wife, Stephanie Burke, (right), have been sitting in line for almost 7 hours to receive the vaccination from Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium 24 hour walk-in vaccination at the Temple Liacouras Center. “Right now there is no real way to get it unless you wait out and stay out in these lines,” David said. “It was the perfect opportunity. It’s good it ain't raining or snowing.”Read moreTYGER WILLIAMS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
    by Jenice Armstrong | Columnist
    Updated 
    Published 

I have a friend with considerable health challenges who took the bus to the Liacouras Center not once, but three times over the weekend, hoping to get a good spot in line at the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium’s 24-hour vaxathon.

But each time he showed up, the line was too long. Three times, he left thankful for the Black Doctors trying to provide vaccines to underserved neighborhood residents, but frustrated he wasn’t lucky enough to get one himself.

“On the non-selfish tip, I’m happy for everybody who got the vaccine,” he told me, but added that Philadelphians shouldn’t have to scramble to get vaccinated.

I can’t say enough about the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, which vaccinated 4,000 people during its 24-hour event. That’s huge. This city is forever in its debt. Philly would be in a much worse mess were it not for the way Dr. Ala Stanford and the other physicians and medical personnel in the consortium have stepped up, especially after Philly Fighting COVID went bust earlier this year.

It hurts my soul to see Philadelphians waiting in the cold and going from website to website looking for shots for themselves and their loved ones.

It shouldn’t be like this.

My experience in New Jersey was totally different. In January, my husband happened across a news blurb announcing vaccinations at the Moorestown Mall. He qualified because he has an underlying health condition. And in Jersey, media people like me are included in the 1B group along with police and firefighters and food service employees. He signed us up via Virtua.org.

On the day of my appointment, several weeks later, my husband dropped me off at the former Lord & Taylor store turned vaccine megasite. A uniformed national guardsman took my temperature and gave me hand sanitizer. It didn’t take long before I was sitting down, injected, and then directed to the observation area, where personnel check for allergic reactions. Back in the car, I glanced at my cellphone. The entire process took barely 30 minutes.

I recognize my experience is a form of privilege. Many other Jersey residents are having a much harder time. They are on long waiting lists and others are trying to figure out how and when to sign up.

I’m deeply concerned when I hear stories like those of attorney Danyl Patterson, who had five senior citizens rising at 1:30 a.m. to participate in the Black Doctors’ 24-hour vaxathon. I’m happy so many Philadelphians are willing to do what it takes to get vaccinations, but outraged at what they have to go through to get it.

The lack of doses is a major obstacle. That’s a national problem.

The process of getting inoculated needs to be much easier.

“The more resources and the more people thinking about it and the more people working onboard toward this, the better we can do,” said James Garrow, a city health department spokesperson.

There should be no need for vaccine matchmakers like Patterson and other good-hearted folks who have taken it upon themselves to ensure the elderly can navigate online sign-ups and take their rightful place at the front of the lines. And nobody should have to wait for hours outside, risking hypothermia.

“I got something like 25 people scheduled over the course of four weeks of not sleeping [well],” Patterson told her followers Sunday on Facebook. “I would wake up in the middle of the night to jump on computers ... to try and get people in my family or friends or my senior citizen neighbors vaccines. [It] should not be that hard.”

More shots are coming. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is scheduled to open a vaccine site at the Convention Center on Wednesday that can inoculate 6,000 people a day.

It shouldn’t be left completely up to the feds, though.

Where are Philly’s big thinkers and organizers? No shade on New Jersey, but isn’t Philly the same city that hosted Pope Francis? That put on Made in America every summer? And that threw that epic Super Bowl parade? Not to mention not one but two major political conventions in recent years.

We need the organizers who know how to order portable bathrooms and the experts at crowd control. It would be nice if they put the same kind of energy that goes into orchestrating big events into ensuring that residents get vaccinated.