Page 14 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2021

FEATURE | DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING
My faith in human kindness and decency was at times tested. Thankfully, with time our vaccine supply increased and easier pathways to vaccination developed.
the U.S. Senator’s wife.
It seems like I vaccinated somewhere
and someone almost seven days a week for months. My team of budding medi- cal students followed along with me to dozens of home visits where I vaccinat- ed shut-ins, the bed-bound frail and the elderly. Although these individuals may never leave their home, many people will come into their homes to deliver them services and to help care for them. My oldest house call was a vaccination for a lovely 96-year-old lady; my young- est, a frightened 12-year-old with per- vasive disabilities. Recently, I vaccinated inmates at the Sussex Correctional Institution and at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. In these settings, every single vaccination is a win.
The target group for vaccinations is now down to those who are hesitant to receive any vaccination, the wait-and- see group, the fearful and distrustful, and those that falsely believe that hav- ing had COVID protects them from getting it again. I must share with this last group the unwelcome knowledge that their assumed immunity may not apply to the mutated and variant forms of COVID. They may also be suscepti- ble if their immune system failed to ad- equately build an arsenal of antibodies to COVID in response to their original infection.
As of this writing, I await vaccine approval for 5- to 12-year-old children and thus a fresh batch of arms to vac- cinate.
I know full well that soon this will be followed by the initiation of booster vaccinations to fine-tune for the up- coming variants of COVID. I will will- ingly do this, knowing that each arm I vaccinate, each immune system I awak- en to COVID, will help to protect all of us. The words I hear my mother guide me with are “do the next right thing.”
And so, I will endeavor to do just that.
for those hospitalized and gravely ill or dying. The antiviral medication Remde- sivir, high-dose steroids, and preformed antibody cocktails were saved as last- ditch efforts. But many times, it was too little too late. For those who did re- cover, the hospitalization stays were 90 days or more, not the typical week that is current practice.
As the virus spread, more people scrambled for testing. Unfortunately the testing made little difference clini- cally, because we had no medical treat- ments to offer those not hospitalized unless oxygenation became an issue. Our goal was to find infected persons suitable for isolation and quarantine, al- though many individuals refused to co- operate. Today, testing continues, but the purpose of the testing has changed. Now the drive for testing is not so much for discovering illness or a suspected ex- posure, but for the convenience of trav- el, family gatherings, or shedding masks for a private get-together.
Just as the demand for testing at first far exceeded the supply of tests, so too would the supply of vaccine doses initially fall short. Priority tiers were established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and strictly en- forced by DPH. The hours-long lines of cars now were endured in hopes of receiving a vaccination, not testing.
With the demand far surpassing the supply, the fact that I personally pos- sessed a limited amount of vaccine as a state-approved vaccinator made me an instant celebrity. It seemed everyone became frenzied to gain access to a vac-
cination. People I knew, and some I did not know, tested my ethical standards, hoping I would make an exception for them. Everyone had a story explaining why they should receive the vaccine, although they were not yet qualified to do so according to the guidelines. I witnessed line jumpers, those false- ly claiming to be first responders or healthcare workers, with the sole pur- pose of receiving an early vaccination. In fact, over and over, I witnessed bla- tant disregard for the greater good. The lack of altruism and the pure selfishness surrounding obtaining a COVID vac- cination astounded me. It seems people feared for their lives; and the vaccine became their lifeline, the great hope. My faith in human kindness and decen- cy was at times tested. Thankfully, with time our vaccine supply increased and easier pathways to vaccination devel- oped and were put in place. My inces- sant texts and phone calls from people requesting vaccination decreased a bit. I could breathe again.
As the vaccine-eligible age groups expanded, so did my role as the doctor for the underserved. I began to vacci- nate at dozens of new locations — half- way houses, fast food drive-throughs, Rodney Square and anywhere the need for vaccinations existed. I went to where the people were. Those people may not have had a vehicle to drive to a mass vaccination event or even had the access to media to know it existed. My team often included Lt. Gov. Hall- Long, my husband Rick Schuder, attor- ney Lisa Goodman, and Annie Coons,
12 DELAWARE LAWYER SUMMER 2021