February 27, 2021: Scarcity and Screwiness -

It’s been a fun few days of deep discussions, like a protracted Ethics, Psych, and Anthro seminar. I’m having a mental analogy festival, as a result. Everything is much like something else, except not really.

I said a while back that the outpouring of information and advice about the vaccine and the variants felt reminiscent of the beginning of the pandemic, when those of us who wanted to understand what was happening were flooded with info that was often contradictory or ill-explained. For instance, this week saw a debate among numbers-people about the CDC saying we’d lost a year of life expectancy thanks to the virus. (Nuh-uh! More like Five Days! Nuh-uh! You are bad at math! Well, you have bad terminology! Well, it’s a dumb CONCEPT! Nuh-uh!)

Or there was the intriguing rabbit-hole discussions about MMR vaccine protection against COVID.

It’s not just info and advice that are reminding me of the early days, though; it’s the parade of humans under pressure, humans coping with scarcity. Remember the folks who hoarded toilet paper, or fought little old ladies for it in the supermarket aisles? Remember the heartwarming stories of those who went to the parking lot and split their package of toilet paper rolls with the little old ladies? Remember how some of your friends bought a bidet, and you thought: Hmmmm? Remember when your neighborhood list-serv had posts saying There is one roll left at Hankins Hardware, and Hankins wrote back saying We are out, also no hand sanitizer and no gloves, please, please stay away?

Vaccination-hunting tales, people. Very, very similar.

There is one dose left at the Walgreens in Wagontire (scarcity). Will you mug someone at the Wagontire Walgreens who is hoping to get that last dose (ethics)? Should you find the oldest and most home-bound resident of Wagontire, and selflessly wheel her (from a safe distance) to the pharmacy? Did you use so much gas driving 276 miles to Wagontire that you contributed to climate disaster, which either does or doesn’t cancel your selfless act, depending on if you are nabbing that dose so you can go help your elderly, failing, friendless mentor? Are you exercising your privilege in owning a car and having a day to drive to Wagontire without losing your minimum-wage job? What if nobody in Wagontire wants the dose? Is Education the REAL Answer?

No, really, it’s been days of this. Ethics professors should be compiling case studies for future discussion. Annabelle did X to get vaccinated, which was effective but morally dubious. Bill did Y. Chloe did nothing, but when a kindly nurse got lost in her neighborhood and asked for directions, she drew a little map, and the nurse vaccinated her. Why didn’t the nurse ask someone more deserving than Chloe for directions? Is that Chloe’s fault?

The scarcity will ease, and people will calm down. March 21 is when OHA predicts supply and demand might even out for 65 and older, and on March 29, a new eligibility tranche will be released. But right now, the discrepancy is big. I heard that on Thursday, 3,800 appointment times opened up, but 280,000 people were eligible. I can’t verify those numbers. They don’t feel wrong, though.

(screen shot collage by Brian Breneman)

We have a (temporary) dosage scarcity, plus a system that shuts down when too many people try to use it. I love this article on theensuing rage of those who fail.

(If you tried and succeeded, I don’t recommend you read it. It isn’t for you. It’s for fellow sufferers, and will be mordantly funny to them. Also, if you haven’t tried yet, it might dismay you. Analogy: suppose you and a close friend both had awful experiences giving birth. Not fair to scare innocent pregnant ladies with those stories, and no point in telling friends who pushed three times and Ta-daa!! But with each other, boy, you can LET LOOSE!)

More black humor, from a choir buddy:

The ethics discussions also extended to my meditation on volunteering in retirement, and the Buechner test.  Wow, do I have a lot of friends retiring soon, and worrying about choosing worthy yet fulfilling pastimes! 

For a while, it looked as if there would be a third criterion.  A) The endeavor makes you deeply glad, B) The endeavor meets a real need in the world, and C) The endeavor doesn’t cause physical agony or make you hate humanity. But C was really A in disguise. Several people said they had done SOLVE cleanup projects in the past, or hoped to in the future. Some mentioned the “not glad” bits, eg finding needles, how much it hurts your arthritis to use those litter-grabber things for hours, or the “hating humanity” bits, which for me centered on the cigarette butts. (SOLVE sent us a thank-you the next day saying 30,000 cigarette butts were picked up this round, whee! My satisfaction about this is somewhat grim.) I figure if I finish a volunteer gig and I hate humanity, that’s a fail.

One pal said she USED to be opposed to SOLVE projects in ways analogous to my “this isn’t the best approach” friend (Mr. Invent a Better Cigarette Butt!) and also disgruntled in general at some people having to pick up after others (agreed), but she is long past that, and would – absent the pandemic – take a malt bag out and clean up a particular mess that drives her nuts. Cleaning it up would make her happy.

One of these days, may it be so. Right now, she’s in line for a shot in the summer.