Transplant lists aren’t first in first out. Someone could be healthy at 2pm and at the top of the list by 5pm (not that it’s likely).
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He may not last that long. Only about half of transplant recipients make it past five years.
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(as long as we are splitting hairs, lets go all the way…)
Depends on where he lived. In states that had high uptake on vaccines they were still for select groups only by 3/19. So sure he could have had it if he say lied and claimed to be an essential worker, or in a high risk group. Alternately I suppose he could have attempted to change lines of work to become an essential worker.
Now it is true that he clearly didn’t want it (and while “I think I’ll wait half a decade” is less dumb then a lot of anti-vaxx stances, it is effectively the same choice), but at that point his choice to delay (for a stupid long time) taking it likely actually had zero effect on him actually taking it.
Oddly however the states with the lowest vaccination rates reached “open for all comers” much sooner. In CA when you needed to be over 50 and have an underlying issue AK would let you have it if you had a pulse.
…so sticking with the hair splitting, I can’t say for sure that he couldn’t have had it on 3/19, but if he was in CA (and a fair number of other states), no.
…or one more bit of hair splitting, if he had free time and wanted it badly a lot of people had success going to every vaccine site they could reach in the last half hour of business and asking for any “leftovers”. Many people made this work, although many tried this and didn’t get anywhere. So yes, the “if he wanted it” could have made a little more difference (hey, it has been like six months, it took me a while to remember that part!)
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As a 25-year-old he’s likely to survive longer than most lung transplant recipients, but odds are against him ever reaching old age. No way around it—he’s going to pay for his decision not to get vaccinated for the rest of his life.
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I mean, I’ll take that over a double lung transplant that doesn’t think needs the vaccine now.
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Who needs the COVID vaccine? They’ll just give ya a new set of lungs if you need them!
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“I didn’t think the lion would eat MY face”
says man who voted for Lions-Will-Eat-Your-Face party
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We were desperate to get the vaccines - wife and daughter are high risk and I was terrified of Long COVID, so we were highly motivated. It was still just a fluke that we actually managed to be vaccinated by late March. At the time, it was still only elderly and high-risk people, and “jumping the line” was highly discouraged and a lot of people were patiently waiting their turn. And vaccines were being thrown away, but that’s another rant for another time.
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I apologize. I misread the source I was referring to. It was 100 million shots by 3/19 and not 100 million vaccinated.
Now he’s going to get SSDI for the rest of his life, with my tax dollars, when he should have been left to rot.
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I was eligible for a vaccine from being in a high risk group and I absolutely wanted it, and I couldn’t get it until March because of a lack of availability in my county and an absolutely terrible scheduling system. This guy is a jack hole, but it’s possible he might not have been able to get the vaccine before he got COVID even if he’d wanted it.
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I wanted it badly, but I waited in line like I was supposed to. I got very good at the 3am CVS refresh game and got vaccine appointments for many eligible relatives (and lost a lot of sleep that month, but it was worth it). On the first day I was eligible, some time in May, I snagged my first appointment.
If I had caught Covid in April, I hope you wouldn’t be saying “well, if SamSam had really wanted it…”
A separate question is whether he would have gotten it if he had been eligible. But since it wouldn’t have been able to affect his actions (barring the unethical line-jumping) then this is kind of just a thought-police crime.
I think before you’re eligible, I’m not going to judge you for privately musing about whether it’s safe yet, since it’s just academic (unless you’re spreading your antivaxx nonsense to others). It’s what you do when it’s available that counts.
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The blog post starts with his mother saying he wanted to wait 10 years to get it. The actual article throws a fit with my ad blocker and I keep forgetting to read it on my computer. So I think the intent to get it when available vs in a decade makes a difference.
Also if you were affected in the way he was I think you would be subjected to some dark but affectionate jokes from us. Maybe about repossession of the lungs?
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