February 5, 2021, 2:10 PM
With overwhelming demand in the early months of the vaccine rollout, thousands of Americans are crossing state lines on quests for doses. The scramble to get inoculated has turned attention to the patchwork of vaccination rules devised by states, given a lack of national, standardized protocols.With states varying widely in prioritizing who can get shots, “vaccine hunter” groups, which scour the country for places where people qualify for the vaccine, have sprung into action on social media.
But cutting the line — or in this case, crossing state lines — to jump ahead goes beyond that ethical boundary, said Nancy Berlinger, a bioethicist at the Hastings Center, an ethics research institute in Garrison, New York. Some states have begun cracking down. Kentucky updated its vaccine eligibility requirements this week so that only residents or individuals providing health care services directly to patients in Kentucky would be able to get the shot. The Washington State Department of Health said last week that people receiving a COVID-19 vaccine at one of the state’s four mass vaccination sites must either work or live in the state.
For people still waiting for vaccines, it can be frustrating to see others jump ahead. Lawrence Gretz, a retired correctional transportation officer in Mesa, Arizona, said he was incensed after seeing news reports that people from out of state, including people spending the winter in Arizona, were getting their shots before him and his mother.
Georgia’s health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, has called crossing state lines for shots “irresponsible and selfish” but said the state would not crack down to try to prevent it.
Yea and making it next to impossible for those of us who actually live in Mississippi to get an appointment!
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