KEY WEST: Snowbirds, Coconut Telegraphs, and the end of Pandemic Times, Maybe?

This past year sure was a doozy, wasn’t it? 

Wish I could say we’ve been trekking in Patagonia or some such recently, but no.  We’ve been set back on our heels like everyone else, especially by that mind-numbing number: 500,000. Soon, that’s how many Americans will lie dead due to Covid-19. 

We’ve been home until recently, clicking through America’s current nightmares from our couch. And we’re definitely not bored. Watching military-garbed, zip tie-equipped insurrectionists scale walls and stalk our nation’s leaders is not boring. Just terrifying, so it was more than the right time for a trip. Since we started wiping down the groceries last March, our recent Key West flight counts as our first great escape since ‘before’. 

Remember before? Before, we’d just disembarked the Pacific Princess after our first transit of the Panama Canal. Friends continuing on for the world cruise ended up trapped somewhere off the coast of Australia, the Aussies not at all eager to welcome a potential plague ship. And the lovely Pacific Princess? Sold off to the highest bidder, in the wake of a crashing cruise market. 

Now, we no longer wipe down the groceries but that tragic number still provides jolts of terror. That’s because we fear slow suffocation. Or lifelong disability. Or both. We’re old, but we can still figure out stuff just fine. Like the fact that if 500,000 other Americans can succumb to Covid-19, then so can we. It is true that as the vaccine rolls out, infection numbers are decreasing by the day. Very encouraging. And yet.

So no Patagonia for now, maybe never. Instead, we’re on a bi-coastal scavenging trip, on the hunt for those elusive vaccine shots. Here’s our take on how that search is going so far (stressful!), and what may be coming next (maybe some dancing).

THE HUNT BEGINS

Here in Florida, all we have to help us is the coconut telegraph, a laptop, an army of tech-savvy new Facebook friends, and a dream. 

Let’s start with the dream, which informs my take on everything vaccine-related.

My dream happened in 1957, and it was a real dream I was having, something about walls closing in, when I woke up in a Denver hospital and spotted my mom, crying across the room. All of three years old, I had almost died due to seizures caused by the 1957 pandemic flu, which killed an estimated 70,000-116,000 Americans. That sight of my mom was my first real memory in life. Selfish tiny bundle of fury that I was back then, I harrumphed and turned my back on her when she reached out to me. I mean she left me with strangers, how dare she? Poor Mom.

My early near-death motivates me to want that vaccine in my arm asap. It also reminds me that in 1957, America defeated a deadly pandemic by fast-tracking the vaccination of 40 million people, lightning-quick. The reason we don’t hear much about that pandemic is because we stopped it in its tracks. Imagine that, 63 long years ago. (Dr. Hilleman saved the day back then – read how he did it, here).

It is indeed a miracle that we created the Covid-19 vaccine in ten short months, especially since it was ‘novel’ and not a flu variant like the 1957 virus. Much harder when it’s a novel, ‘new’ virus. Yay modern science! 

However, if the vaccine doesn’t get jabbed into arms fast a la 1957, the virus might mutate into something worse. We already hear ominous rumblings concerning the dangers of new variants, even though pandemic-weary humans do not want to go there. (The virus does not care what we want, of course).

So jabs in arms needed to happen yesterday. And shipping them to all 50 States without figuring out the jab part is like getting five numbers on your lotto ticket instead of six. And yes I’m speaking directly to you, Alex Azar, and yes you’re going to get blamed.

But I digress. We’ll come back to Azar, the former US HHS Secretary, and his role in all this later. Let’s get to the coconut telegraph, and a bit of background to bring our story up to date.

KEY WEST, EVEN DURING PANDEMIC TIMES, IS GREAT! 

So yes, we’re in Key West for the winter, escaping Seattle’s oppressive shivery greyness. After many stay-or-go debates and what seemed like 10,000 cancelled trips, we donned layers of protective gear for our flight to the End of the Road. In Key West, huge signs hang on street poles to remind us that it’s the law to wear a mask, right above the mask-free tourists ignoring the signs. These two snowbirds follow the law, because, well….. suffocation.

We swim when the pool is almost empty, and at Smathers Beach, we move our beach chairs away if unmasked people get too close. Sorry, unmasked people, for the shunning. You could kill grandma so no friendly welcomes for you.

And our Florida vaccine story started out just fine. Governor DeSantis, in fact, plastered his slogan Seniors First! everywhere, and since we’re seniors, we were comforted by this. But we’re not stupid seniors. This IS Florida, after all….what could possibly go wrong? 

First off, the coconut telegraph was our friend, until it wasn’t. Key West word-of-mouth spread the message to head down to the Gato Health Department building pronto, get in line, and get your vaccine shot, everyone! The miracle was finally happening!

But…….we’re snowbirds. Since 2003 we’ve headed to Key West in the winter, and the rest of the year we hang out in Washington State, the land of tech wizards, coastal vampires, and drizzly winter fog. We do feel like Florida locals when we’re down here, but we’re not. A crucial detail in our story.

In the Gato line, a nice health department lady wrote down our information in ink on a clipboard. No computer signup, just names in ink on a piece of paper. We’ll call you when we have an appointment. That’s so Key West, we chuckled with relief while celebrating our luck with local friends, who all made it on “the list.” Now we just wait our turn. Or so we thought.

One of our friends almost got shots that very day, in fact, but couldn’t get her 83-year-old disabled husband back to the Gato Building before closing time. She planned to come back the next day. Could it really be this easy? No, of course it couldn’t. 

CHAOS ENSUES, AND SNOWBIRDS GET SHAMED

Because just like that, the next morning the Gato Building vaccine signup line abruptly shut down, and the county told everyone to book new appointments through the Publix grocery chain’s online portal. Our disabled friend was out of luck, and so were we. The coconut telegraph spread the news that the Gato lists had been destroyed, which we found out later was not true (thankfully for our friends, who later got called and got their shots). So pandemic lesson #1 – be careful what you believe if it’s from the coconut telegraph. Or Governor DeSantis. 

And then the Snowbird Shaming began. Turns out there was a little thing called vaccine tourism, where rich folks were flying in, hunting for shots. Those types aren’t real snowbirds, just rich opportunists, and rich opportunists historically thrive in Florida. Snowbird hysteria reached a fever pitch, though, and Governor DeSantis, who above all else listens to the people (voters, natch), signed an order mandating part-time residency documentation the very next day. 

Sigh. Turns out we have the proper documentation, just barely, so we could get a shot here if we insisted. Yet snowbirds are about as welcome in the vaccine line as the maskless inebriated guy down on Duval Street, flinging his arms in our direction to infect us with death. (We seldom do anything but drive down Duval Street this year, by the way, safely behind window glass. Covid-spreading tourists down there. A definite avoid.)

To escape all that shaming, we secured March appointments with our Washington State health provider and then turned to help our Florida friends crack the Publix signup website. Turns out that Governor DeSantis awarded Publix an exclusive vaccine distribution contract, so until recently the Publix website was the only game in town.

SO HOW MANY SENIOR CITIZENS DON’T HAVE INTERNET? THAT MANY? OH. 

Like vaccine signup sites everywhere, speed matters. But the Florida Publix site adds a cruel spin to slow everyone down. To get to the signup page, first I had to beat out 300,000+ other hunters just to be let on the portal. That’s right; I wasn’t just competing with Key Westers for their 250 allotted appointments. I was competing with all of Florida. And their kids, one of whom booked his dad’s appointment from a laptop in Israel. Seriously. 

When I finally reached the portal after hours and days of trying, the closest Florida appointment was on Marco Island, a four-hour drive away. A no-go for my Key West friends. And what about seniors who don’t live within 40 miles of a Publix grocery store, many of whom are poor or disabled? How are they going to get their shots?  Hmmm. This is a systems issue, as I used to say when I planned systems. It’s always some flaw in the planning process that causes things to go off the rails in systems execution. Always.

 And whoever thought it was a good idea to have older Americans book their appointments online must have been smoking something. Have you watched a tech-challenged grandpa enter data on a computer recently, Governor DeSantis and Governor Inslee? (See, I’m not only attacking the Republican. Fair and balanced here.) Just watch as those old squinting eyes find one key at a time, tap. and tap. and tap. A slow drip of taps. 

And then what if Grandpa types an extra dash in his phone number, like I did, and the screen won’t advance? (I lost two precious minutes, after a mad dash to problem-solve). Or Grandma types everything in correctly, hits ‘book’ and the site says the chosen time is gone, then sends her back to type everything all over again? That happened to me four times, as appointments were disappearing by the second, before I successfully booked an Islamorada appointment, a two-hour drive up U.S. 1. The only reason I stuck with it was because I was so mad. 

And guess what? Stats say 42% of seniors don’t even HAVE broadband internet. Geez. 

So it’s no wonder that some seniors have given up altogether. I mean, who can blame them?  

THE APPOINTMENT HELPERS TAKE CHARGE

Luckily, an army of skilled keyboard wizards – the video game kids! – have stepped up to help all the old people.  The online vaccine hunt requires skills akin to success at video games, after all: Competition for scarce resources, hair-trigger clicking, flying keyboard fingers that go fast-fast-fast. My Indiana daughter possesses these skills, and put them to good work booking appointments for seven elderly Washington State relatives so far. 

So when I log onto the Publix website, I’ve been competing against thousands of other daughters, sons, and grandkids like her from all over the world, hunting down shots for their parents, nanas and papas. And the Publix site ratchets up the game-like tension: It shows how many appointments are left in each county as they dwindle down while you wait to be let on: 250, 243, 199, 67, 24. So no stress at all in this process, none whatsoever.  

This is the same thing that happens in the online game Fortnite, which I play (badly) with my grandsons. As the dark storm closes in the clock ticks down, and if your avatar doesn’t run fast enough in the right direction you go poof. No trophy or appointment for you. This sort of thing makes gamers feel right at home on vaccine appointment sites, but it’s no wonder Floridians – and Americans everywhere – are absolutely infuriated by all this.

But at least the gamer generation is stepping up. And other grass roots efforts have sprung up everywhere, as volunteers reach out to seniors, make phone calls and appointments, chauffeur elders to their vaccine appointments. Two Facebook groups have helped my daughter and I with our hunts, one in Florida, the other in Washington State. Both provide just-in-time information on where to sign up for the vaccine, instructions on sign ups, and coordination of volunteer action. (Another new Washington State volunteer site here, and Washington State’s site, here, if anyone needs help hunting). These vaccine helpers are the real heroes of our age, and Facebook, the chaos machine of our modern era, is saving the day. 

A day, I might add, that might not have needed saving if Alex Azar and company had planned how to deliver 600 million shots in arms as fast as possible, as Dr. Hilleman and company did way back in 1957. True fact: Azar did not believe it was the government’s job to plan the rollout. The feds would deliver the vaccines to the states and call it good, even though state and county governments were already drained from dealing with Covid-19. 

States also did not receive additional funding support, since Azar didn’t think they needed it. (All the gory details here, if you can stand it.) So now what do we have? All 50 US states, all 3,006 counties, delivering a crazy quilt of vaccine rollouts as fast as they can.

Lack of planning gave us this crazy quilt, but blaming the non-planners, while satisfying in an “I told you so” kind of way, doesn’t get shots in arms right now. Gamers, Facebook, and life-saving volunteer armies of good people do. (…and of course all those nurses and doctors who smile as they jab our arms.) 

SO LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL, MAYBE?

So with these good people’s help, vaccine shots may go in everyone’s arms before the virus mutates up more destruction for humanity. And while we wait to see how it all turns out, these two former world travelers have tip-toed back into travel planning, with expectations very much in check. I mean, who knows what’s coming around the corner after a year like this one?

If – big IF – all goes as planned, come the end of September we’ll be dancing in the streets at the many-times-rescheduled New Orleans French Quarter Festival. In year’s past we’ve danced our way young again with the NOLA locals, wandering from one free music stage to another, sampling delectable nibbles from Bite of New Orleans food trucks. It’s always a joyous party, just the right place to be once this is over and it’s time for a post-pandemic celebration. I mean, who knows how to celebrate survival and rebirth better than these guys?

So here’s hoping we ALL get to let the good times roll again, soon..…Laissez les bon temps rouler!  True Dat.

Stay safe, everyone, and take care!

Padre and the Blonde, back at it (sort of)