What Vaccination Means to New Yorkers

What were you thinking when you got here today? I said, “Oh, my God, thank you guys.” It’s great. Es bonito. Es importante, muy importante, porque ustedes están salvando la vida a la persona. — Clemencia Castillo How do you feel? As soon as it happened, I felt a wave of relief, which is pretty cool. It’s kind of euphoric. — Dileepan Ganesan Watching videos about potential side effects had made Kimberly nervous about the vaccine, but after doing additional research she felt more comfortable. How’d it go? That was so fast. Fifteen minutes, in and out. Government provision of social welfare—it works! It’s, like, duh. — Vince Patti How do you feel? Right now it’s not hurting. I don’t even much feel it right now, maybe because I’m happy. — Victoria Davis Is your whole family getting vaccinated? In Korea, there’s not enough vaccines available yet, so I’ll be the first one in the family to get it. At least over here, they got the vaccines, right? Whereas, in Korea, they were able to prevent the spread, and the death, and all that. — Jungkyun Han What will change for you? It’s not like I won’t be careful—it’s more about, like, the stress level. I don’t have to worry about that as much anymore, and that’s just really nice. — Jackson Min Will your outlook change? No. I’ll feel secure that I’ve done everything I can do to protect myself, but we’re still living in a fashion that is very limited, in terms of life style. — Jill Esterman After spending the first few months of the pandemic at home in their native St. Lucia, Kyla and Devin returned to New York in October. What are you looking forward to? I can’t wait for Broadway to reopen—that’s my favorite, and I feel like it’s such a big part of New York. Literally, I’ll take any show. That’s where I’m at. I’ve missed it a lot. — Emma Lewis Do you feel glad that you made this choice? I can’t tell you yet. We’ll wait and see what happens. — Eva Muñoz Sources: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More on the Coronavirus There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the pandemic when events might have turned out differently. Citizens around the world, from Brazil to Rwanda, share their experiences of the pandemic. In countries where the rate of infection threatens to outstrip the capacity of the health system, doctors are confronting ethical quandaries. Surviving a severe coronavirus infection is hard. So is recovering. Can the COVID-19 vaccine beat the proliferation of new virus mutations? The pandemic has presented companies with an unprecedented opportunity to rethink the fundamentals of the physical workplace.

Getting the Shot

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