It’s amazing that so many of us are getting vaccinated, but how did we even get here?
I met with some of the people on the front lines to find out.
As the old saying goes, even a broken administration is right once a term. Or something like that.
I'm not good with quotes. But it's true—Trump’s Operation Warp Speed did a good thing! It
helped lead to some of the fastest-developed vaccines in history, which in turn, led to
the new vaccines you're jealous your friends got before you. But now, as we should be giving
the vaccination process all we've got, there’s more confusion than ever. Some vaccines are
administered by the National Guard, others by giant pharmacy chains like Walgreens and
that place with the long receipts, and others by independent ones like J&N in the Bronx,
which is where I am today. This is Gary. He is the owner and sole vaccinator at this fine
establishment. Hey, Gary! Hello! - Hello.
Tell me about the first shipment of vaccines. - The first shipment, I got a notice from
the city Department of Health that I’m going to get 100 doses. But I cannot make appointments
until I get the vaccine, and I got the shipment notification one day before.
Okay, you had, like, a total of 24 hours to set up a whole system for distributing the
vaccines? - At that time, I had no system.
How much time do you have to use 100 doses? - One week. And once I take it out of the
refrigerator, one day. And when I take the first dose out, I have to use all those ten
doses within six hours. I feel like I just bought a carton of milk
that had those same instructions on them. Gary, who runs his pharmacy alone, got more
calls from people who wanted the vaccine than he knew what to do with. I see you, Mr. Popular.
Surely, the government hooked him up with a Resy but for vaccines. Right?
How much does the state help you create and maintain your waitlist?
- The list? Zero. The—, I’m sorry—?
- Zero. No help from the state. No help from the state?
- No. You had to build your waitlist yourself?
- Yeah. I sat through nights and nights and learned how to design it, how to put them
on my website. Did you use Squarespace? And even if you didn’t,
would you be willing to say that you used Squarespace? Because I super need advertisers
for my podcast. - No.
It's true, I have a podcast! Listen to Full Release with Samantha Bee wherever you get
podcasts. Squarespace! Is your customer base, like, super tech-savvy?
- No. No.
- Because they don't have no way to access online and make their own appointments, they’ll
be left behind. So they’re just picking up the phone and
they’re just like, - Picking up the phone.
“Gary, what do I do?” - In my own community, who has supported me
throughout the last 18 years I was here. If I don’t serve them first, I’ll be doing
disservice to them. That’s why I reserve 40% to the walk-in requests.
You reserve 40% of your vaccine supply for walk-ins? What percentage of your vaccine
is reserved for, you know, like a talk show host or whatever?
- Nothing. Zero. Uh… maybe this’ll change your tune…
- I wish that could help. No. You ever seen one of these before?
- I’ve seen it. Well, that was a wasted trip to the ATM. Up
until now, Gary's issues have been logistical. But now, mistrust of vaccines is creating
a whole new problem. Approximately one in four Americans don’t want to take the vaccine!
And how do you convince people who are hesitant to take the vaccine to take it?
- I tell them first, I took it. I would give it to my mother, my wife, and my children.
That gives them a lot of trust. We get it, you're super popular, Gary. But
what about this nice man I met at self-checkout? - I’m Mitesh Patel. I’m the director of
the Penn Medicine Nudge Unit. I’m sorry, did you just say Nudge Unit?
- That’s right, Nudge Unit. A nudge is like a way to frame information or give you feedback
and try and motivate you to change your behavior. So, you get paid to do something that all
moms do for free? - Something like that.
But what do nudges—and yes, that's a scientific term—have to do with vaccines?
- So, right now, there’s a lot more demand for the vaccine than there is supply. So people
can’t even imagine a day where we’re gonna have too much. But I really think that’s
gonna be here in the near future. But the challenge is that not everybody wants to get
vaccinated. What’s the big takeaway that you’ve gleaned
from your nudge studies? Other than people are less eager to avoid a deadly disease than
you might think. - Most surprising was that one word actually
dramatically changed whether or not people got the vaccine. Instead of telling people
the vaccine was available for them, we told them it was reserved, and that created an
11% boost in the likelihood that people would get vaccinated.
I feel like what you’re telling me is that I shouldn’t just tell people that there’s
a new episode of Full Frontal at 10:30 PM Wednesday on TBS. I should say that there’s
a new episode reserved for them. - That’s right. People feel like it’s
theirs and they don’t want to miss out. And that’s gonna make them more likely to
watch. Wow, people are right! Words do matter! It's
so easy. But why isn't the government sharing this reserved information on this messaging
with people like Gary? - I think the government is doing more and
they’re really pushing things forward, but I think we need to really double down our
efforts and really try to help everyone work together to end this pandemic faster.
Makes sense to me! And we're almost there! We just need to keep nudging ourselves in
the right direction. To clarify, Governor Cuomo—with our words, not our hands.