Tomorrow, there will be no lines extending from the ARCH buildings. No students tapping their feet impatiently. No harried nurses trying to get all the students their shots before math recitation.
And that really upsets us.
Tomorrow was supposed to be the first swine flu vaccination clinic. Students were going to form a ridiculously long line, and they were probably going to be a little bit irritated at waiting in the cold, but they were all going to be secretly relieved once they received their vaccinations.
Instead, students will have to wait at least a week — minimum — because the shipment of the vaccines was delayed from Philadelphia.
It’s difficult to know which institution to direct our frustrations toward. There are delays nationwide — demand for the vaccine is sky-high, production is taking longer than anticipated, vaccine yield is less than hoped for. And although there have been several hundred cases reported at Penn, the school has been relatively lucky compared to other universities.
But young people are a high-risk population, and the risk is only exacerbated when students live in such close quarters. With each week the number of cases rises as the number of chances to catch the virus naturally increases.
Again, there’s nothing that we can think of to do. But we’ll be first in line when those clinics finally happen. We hope to see you there.
