‘Have you got yours?’

Vaccinations are top of mind these days, so how will discussions go once we’re back in the office?

‘Have you got yours?’

I’ve heard it compared, half-jokingly, to the Hunger Games. The “it” is the mad scramble to get an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccines, and the Hunger Games is of course the wildly popular book and movie series featuring a dystopian world where people must fight to the death, in a televised event, to survive.

It's an awful comparison, conjuring up visions of violence and death when we’re really talking about medical appointments for flu shots, basically.

And yet when the government announces the date for the next batch of appointments – for eg., 8 am on June 23 – people start planning their strategy early: “I’ll wake up early; I’ll use my cellphone, laptop and tablet; I’ll both call and go online.”

And when the day finally arises, there is indeed a mad scramble to get an early spot, to see that you only have 1,343 people in front of you with eight minutes until you can register, instead of 13,343, with three hours’ wait.

Even when your time finally comes up, after a suspenseful countdown, there’s a mad dash to scroll through the vaccine clinic locations and grab the earliest date. They can vanish right before your eyes, as another person nabs a spot before you’ve clicked “Accept.” Then it’s back to scrolling for another spot, where you grab what you can, not even sure it’s the right location or time, just desperate to have something booked.

I did it this morning for myself and my son, and thankfully it all went fine, despite a few anxious moments.

Of course, that’s the top discussion with friends and family: “Have you had your second shot?” “What did you get?” “Where are you going for your shot?” “Did you hear about this popup clinic?”

Sadly, there’s already a divide in my extended family, with some members choosing not to get the vaccine. That means family visits and cottage time together will likely not happen this summer.

But it makes me wonder: How will it all go once the masses of office workers who vacated their workplaces return later this summer and into the fall? Will there be similar discussions? Or will that be considered too intrusive to ask of colleagues?

And what if you learn a coworker has decided not to get the jab? Will that lead to complaints to HR, requests to work from home, or mandatory masks? HR could face some challenging scenarios.

The complexities and nuances of this pandemic continue to amaze me. Just when it looks like we’ve figured out one issue, 10 more arise.

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