Ethics Professor Weighs In On Marylanders Jumping Lines To Get COVID-19 Vaccine
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Long lines of people have waited outside of the Baltimore Convention Center to get their COVID-19 vaccination, some of whom had to jump hurdles to secure their shot.
"Every time I tried to schedule it, it kept kicking me out. It said, 'error not available, error not available,'" Vanessa Jones, of Baltimore, said.
She said it took about a month of persistently refreshing the online portal to register.
John and Carol McCurdy waited that same amount of time.
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"We're both 77, and we thought we would get it before now," the couple said.
Vaccine distribution hasn't been equal across the board; some areas are getting more shots than others.
Officials in Queen Anne's County said they have plenty of distribution sites, but not enough vaccines.
"We have about 50,000 people, so there are some counties that are 25,000 people and they are getting the same allocation that we're getting. So we're not able to have it spread as far," Chris Corchiarino, President of the Queen Anne's County Board of Commissioners, said.
John Farrell, an ethics professor at Loyola University Maryland, said having shots go to waste would be doing more harm than good because they're scarce.
"First thing we think about in ethics is to do no harm," Farrell said. "So I would say, as awful as it is that people may be trying to scam their way to a higher position in line to get shots, if it comes down to using the shots or not, I say use them," Farrell said. "It's all a mentality of 'for the good of the group' and 'the condition of the good of the individual.'"
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Department's website or call 211. You can find all of WJZ's coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
