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Cooper: Be patient with coronavirus vaccination delays; remember, we’ve been here before

Staff Photo By Troy Stolt / Hamilton County residents wait in line on Amnicola Parkway recently to get the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at the Tennessee River Park.
Staff Photo By Troy Stolt / Hamilton County residents wait in line on Amnicola Parkway recently to get the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at the Tennessee River Park. Staff Photo By Troy Stolt / Hamilton County residents wait in line on Amnicola Parkway recently to get the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at the Tennessee River Park.

By Clint Cooper 5 min read

A woman in line at the mass vaccination station in Mobile, Alabama, stopped short when health officials began asking her for personal information. When they requested her age, she got up and walked out.

“Nothing,” she said, “is worth telling that.”

That wasn’t 2021. That was 1962, and she had been in line to receive a polio vaccine.

Many of the foibles of today’s mass vaccination process for the coronavirus were experienced 60 to 65 years ago or so with the polio vaccine (first with the Salk inoculations, then the Sabin oral vaccine).

As much as we’d like to delete everything from the current virus from our memory banks, we should realize the process to be able to do so is a marathon and not a sprint.