With apologies to all the wonderful doctors I’ve had in my life, going to the vaccine mega-clinic at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday was the most fun I’ve ever had getting a medical procedure.
The clinic was such a well-oiled operation, I was out before I knew it. The Jörmungandr of a line to get in — which snaked up and down Front, York, Bremner and Queens Quay West — moved expeditiously, to the point where I was speedwalking at times.
The coalition of health experts and city officials, as well as Scotiabank and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) executives who set up the event called it the “Our Winning Shot” clinic. Coun. Joe Cressy, chair of the Toronto Board of Health, explained the name to me when I interviewed him for my article about it Friday.
“The name really speaks to two critical pieces,” he said. “One, that this is ‘our’ moment, it is a collective Toronto moment. And two, that we can win this campaign. The future is in our hands with this immunization campaign. It’s a team effort — it only works if everyone works together.”
The campaign saw Scotiabank Arena transformed into a battlefield, one where Torontonians would deal a heavy blow to COVID-19. It aimed to shatter the North American one-day immunization record by vaccinating 25,000 people. Organizers told me “Our Winning Shot” was meant to be a celebration of impending victory over the pandemic, of normal life appearing on the horizon. To that end, they brought in live entertainment and created contests to win free tickets to Raptors or Leafs games for people getting vaccinated that day.
It was entertaining, celebratory for sure, and there was a palpable excitement going around. But being at “Our Winning Shot” was also a deeply strange, dreamlike experience.
I was in a surreal version of place I’d been many times before. Gone were the cheering fans, the world-renowned musicians and athletes. Replacing them was an 8-by-11 grid of seated medical volunteers with needles on their tables.
Tens of thousands of us funneled through the arena and experienced something that would make scarce sense to our pre-pandemic selves. We had beloved sports mascots and radio personalities performing for us, thanking us for being there and doling out prizes, while we watched on, in various stages of being inoculated.
I got my shot just under an hour after joining the line. When I arrived though, some anti-vax malcontents pretending to be volunteers told us the wait would take many hours and urged us to reconsider getting in line. Nowhere near enough to deter me — I gleefully waited nearly four hours for my first dose.
Further down the block, a man in a black T-shirt with the words “Just Say No” on it whipped out a bullhorn. “They have you lined up like sheep,” he said. “The only difference between you and sheep is that you have masks.” A man in line replied with a mocking, “Baa.”
At the corner of Front and York, I passed the anti-vax headquarters — a desk with the words “Information Centre” crudely scrawled on it. “You’re going to be in line for hours, endlessly circling,” said another bullhorn operator at the desk. “Might as well visit the ‘Information Centre.’ ”
“You’re going to be in another line in a few weeks when they turn on the gas,” added a man next to him. As a Jew, that was pretty irksome to hear.
Shortly after, a real volunteer resignedly told a woman ahead of me in line that the police have spoken to the deskers several times, but “they keep coming back.”
But the line did indeed move quickly, and just as quickly the anti-vaxxers were a memory.
Faint at first but growing steadily more thunderous, I could soon hear nothing but Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl,’ which pulsated from speakers at the arena entrance. Within minutes, I was sitting with a nurse, who told me proudly she would be vaccinating people at the clinic for 12 hours that day.
As I waited for the 15-minute post vaccination observation period to elapse, Devo Brown from KiSS 92.5, along with The Raptor, announced that 8,000 shots had just been given out. So of course the musical accompaniment was ‘Shots’ by LMFAO, and the person who got the 8,000th vaccination of the day, a man named Andrew, would be getting free Raptors tickets.
“I feel great,” Andrew said. “I’m excited to get the Raptors back home.”
And just after 4:30 p.m., the vaccinations reached 15,000.
This sort of fanfare being associated with getting vaccinated is really a testament to how odd life has become throughout the pandemic.
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I look forward to the moment, years from now, when an event like this goes back to being as bizarre as it is in a vacuum, when Scotiabank Arena, or whatever it might be called by then, is used for shows and games again.
I’ll be there one day, watching something with my son or daughter from the stands, and say, “I got vaccinated right down there!” pointing to the arena floor.
Hopefully, that’ll be a very strange concept to them.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMisgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVzdGFyLmNvbS9uZXdzL2d0YS8yMDIxLzA2LzI3L2dldHRpbmctdmFjY2luYXRlZC1hdC10aGUtc2NvdGlhYmFuay1hcmVuYS1tZWdhLWNsaW5pYy13YXMtYS1kYXktbGlrZS1uby1vdGhlci1teXNlbGYtYW5kLXRob3VzYW5kcy1vZi1vdGhlcnMtd29udC1zb29uLWZvcmdldC1pdC5odG1s0gEA?oc=5
2021-06-27 21:51:30Z
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