Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Berry.
Walk into the library, coffee shops, Athletic Center, or any building on campus and you’ll hear students talking about their COVID-19 vaccination experience. On April 1, the state of Connecticut opened up vaccinations to all residents, workers, and students in Connecticut, prompting a mad rush amongst Conn students and Connecticut residents alike to book an appointment. Over the last three weeks, herds of students have refreshed all and any websites with possible vaccine appointments and driven to vaccination sites all across the state.
“Getting my vaccine was a surreal experience a year after being sent home from Italy last spring and having spent this year navigating my senior year in a pandemic,” says Elizabeth Berry ‘21 who got her first vaccine at the Earth Convention Center at the Mohegan Sun Casino on April 8. Along with many of her friends, she drove to the site where long lines of Connecticut residents and college students waited to get one of the (then three) available vaccines along with a sacred vaccination card. On April 9, Martha Kenyon ‘21 received her first vaccine at the Earth Convention Center as well, a seemingly popular place for students to get vaccinated. Despite hearing that there were occasional long wait times at the Center, it took Kenyon very little time to get her shot, but “I heard there were lines on and off and one formed right after I left.” Kenyon got a free donut at Krispy Kreme after her dose to celebrate her success, the donut chain is offering free donuts to Americans who choose to get vaccinated as a way to promote widespread vaccination. “It took five minutes to get an appointment but that’s only because someone sent it along to me. Otherwise, I think it would have been a pain in the ass.”
Spots for vaccinations have been filling up quickly throughout the state. The United States as a whole is averaging 3.2 million shots a day and 48% of the population of Connecticut has gotten at least one dose of a vaccine, making it the fourth most vaccinated state in the country as of April 18. 31% of the state has been fully vaccinated at the time of this article’s publication.
Kat Carrion ‘22 also received her first dose of vaccine in early April off-campus. “I went to Walgreens in East Lyme, the whole thing probably took thirty minutes.” Carrion also pointed out that while students were lucky to have gotten shots at different clinics in Connecticut, Connecticut College is beginning to vaccinate students starting this week, with 400 students already signed up. At the time of Berry’s, Kenyon’s, and Carrion’s shots, the College had not yet begun to vaccinate students.
On April 20, the College will host a vaccination clinic with doses of the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccination clinic will be done through the Community Health Center of New London. There will be a second clinic to administer second doses on May 11. The clinic will be able to vaccinate between 500-600 students. The College is also offering doses to out-of-state remote students able to drive in after realizing they had more doses than students interested in being vaccinated on campus. If there are still available doses after the clinic, the College will offer them to family members of College employees. One student I spoke to about being vaccinated at the college said, “I chose to schedule my vaccine here because I didn’t feel an immediate need to do it. Plus community members here [in New London] deserve to get it first, I just happen to be here.” The college originally planned to administer doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine which requires only one dose. However, on April 13, federal health authorities recommended that vaccine providers stop administering the vaccine after six women reported blood clots after being vaccinated.
“If you can get your vaccine through the College and leave appointments in New London for residents you should,” Carrion reminds us. The College has estimated that 95% of Connecticut College students have plans to be vaccinated, an exciting note to end the year on and one that suggests that next year may look a little more normal.
