How I Got The Second Dose Of SinoVac

living.boondockingmexico@yahoo.com

A lot of time had passed since we had had our first injection of the Sinovac vaccine.  We had been told it would be two to three weeks before the second dose.  The clock kept ticking and nothing.  We had seen on the news that planes were landing in CDMX with vaccines but no mention of ours unless it was still for first dose patients.  

Last weekend I was getting very concerned.  Our state secretary of health had been giving daily updates on the virus, vaccines, and details of what would be happening.  He had commented several times that the Sinovac had a delay of 35 days maximum between the two doses.  

Monday of this week, I headed over to the city office (la presidencia) in Santiago to find out what was going on.  Well, we are in election campaigns with voting on June 6th.  More on that later.  The offices were pretty empty as city staff is out ensuring no one is breaking campaign rules.  I was told I had to go to the health department's office which was closer to centro Santiago.  I insisted on a person I could see in person.  I waited about 10 minutes and they ushered me into the human resources office.  The head of HR, a very young woman, told me that there was no one who could help me at the moment.  I refused and said I had to see someone at the moment and in person.

She called the mayor's office (about 10 minutes away) and they gave me a contact and said that I should go over there.  Before I go on, our mayor, filed a petition six months ago to run for a senatorial position.  A pro-tem stepped in since then.  I made it very clear to many people throughout the course of the morning that any person, especially our mayor should not have applied for a license to run for another position during the pandemic.  I reminded them this was a historical event that occurred every one to two hundred years and a person with any morals or values would have passed on the opportunity and stayed to take care of the people who voted for him.

Off I went to the mayor's office.  We talked for over half an hour and the answer was always the same, "this is not a local event, this show is run by the feds".  Bullshit.  I finally said, "si el alcalde no habia dejado su puesto, se quedó y ayudó su gente, no tendriamos este problema.  Es el trabajo del municipio asegurar que la vacuna llega a tiempo.  Estamos hablando de vidas, no de un baile en la plaza".  Translation:  "if the mayor had not stepped down, he would have stayed and helped his people, and we wouldn't have had this problem. It is the municipality's job to ensure that the vaccine gets here on time.  We are talking about lives, not a dance in the town square".

They said they would call me and I left.  5 a.m. the next morning (I still get up at 5 a.m. every day) it was all over the news and the state and our municipality was scrambling to find answers as to when the vaccines would arrive.  By 10 a.m. the assistant secretary of health made an announcement that the vaccines were on their way and that the efficacy would not be affected by the delay.

Wednesday afternoon I received a call from the mayor's office to report to the vaccination site on Saturday at 7 a.m.  

We were there this morning, we got our jab and everyone is happy.  1500 people showed up this morning and it will be repeated again tomorrow.

Tonight we will go out for dinner (an outdoor venue with precautions) to celebrate both the vaccine and Teacher's Day!  Now we can begin planning our trips and we have already made a list and are adding calendar dates.