I work in the Chicago area at a company that does manufacturing. According to Illinois, manufacturing employees are eligible for Phase 1B. Perhaps half the company’s employees are able to work remotely. I am not one of them. I work as an engineer and am frequently in labs working with physical products. I am able to be fairly socially distanced and able to avoid close contact. There have been plenty of COVID cases at the plant throughout the pandemic, mostly in areas where social distancing is much more difficult, though it seems the majority aren’t from spread in the plant but picked up outside work. If I were to guess perhaps 10% of the on-site workforce has had COVID, they publish a listing of how many active cases in each room, names withheld.
The company didn’t really make a statement if we fell into Phase 1B. My wife said that I did (I wasn’t so sure). I figured those working from home wouldn’t be, those who work in manufacturing in close contact definitely would be, and I was in a grey area. Many of my engineering coworkers onsite everyday but able to socially distance pretty well put us at Phase 1C (not getting first dose until late March or April).
After the first week of Phase 1B in Illinois, we spent the weekend checking the Cook County’s website every 15 minutes for vaccine appointments. Sunday at 10 am, they dumped a bunch of appointments for the next three days at the mass vaccination site doing 3000 vaccinations per day. I was able to get one for Wednesday. I didn’t want to tell anyone at work I was getting it, since they had all decided they were waiting for Phase 1C. On Monday at work, I said nothing. On Tuesday, the company made a statement and provided a letter that we were all essential manufacturing workers, and be given the vaccine when allowed by public health guidelines. My coworkers spent their day trying to get vaccine appointments online at local pharmacies and succeeded as the local pharmacies (Walgreens, Jewel) happened to open lots of appointments that day. All 3 people I sit with were able to get appointments for later in the week.
Almost all employees I work with frequently have since received their first dose or have it scheduled next week, including those remotely. It seems those remotely perhaps shouldn’t be eligible, but they do still come in the office occasionally, and the company probably doesn’t want to pick and choose who can get the vaccine and who can’t. And the vaccine site doesn’t want to vet people for vaccine eligibility when one has an appointment and a dose allocated that otherwise could end up in the garbage at the end of the day with no one to give it to. So it seems there probably is some inequity in the process but I also feel that Illinois held up starting Phase 1B too late when there was a hard time finding Phase 1A people towards the end of Phase 1A. So I’ve come around to the idea of if you get an opportunity to take the vaccine, do it. It is better to be vaccinated early than have doses discarded once allocated with no one to give them to.
So I had my first Moderna shot back on February 3. I had moderate pain at the injection site starting on the second day that peaked a day 3 and probably didn’t go away until day 5. And my upper back was unusually sore as though I had overdone it with an upper body workout.
