Spring-ting towards a COVID-free summer.
A Festive Atmosphere
I hadn’t been to the National Library before. I didn’t know where it was, but it was quite simple to follow the bee-trail of young people marching in one direction. People arrived in singles, couples, and in groups of friends, chatting about the day and God knows what (since I don’t understand the language.)
I had never been so excited to have a needle jabbed into my blood system. Nor had I been so nervous — after all, I was an alien in Romania, lacking even a residence permit. All I had was a half-torn sheet of A4 paper that the immigration officer had stamped on with faded blue ink, which I hoped showed that at least I wasn’t totally, irrefutably illegal. That, and my Japanese passport.
College-age volunteers teemed around the entrance to the building, squinting in the sun where the makeshift tent didn’t cover them. “Here,” one of them said in English, taking one look at my very non-Romanian face. “Fill this out.” I wrote on the piece of paper, anxiously skirting around the one section that read: Residence ID.
Once inside the building, I forgot I was supposed to be in a “library.” With voices and music ricocheting around me, I was ushered through the entrance hall by a few more young volunteers, who, God bless, all spoke English. They sat me down and took one look at my passport then asked for a Japanese social security number. I didn’t have one, because I don’t live there. A familiar, fearsome rush of I-don’t-belong-here-or-anywhere-at-all had already crept over me. My butt was half-getting up from my seat, prepared for a rejection, if not a frown to accompany it. But the girl said, “OK,” and marked down my passport number instead.
From then on, I followed everyone else through a short hallway and into a five-story-tall atrium. Ten or so vaccination booths lined the circumference; in the center was a grand piano, a pianist, and a violinist. Slightly unnerved I was to receive a shot in such an unprofessional, unhospital-like setting, that I was afraid to be injected with something contaminated, wrong or illegal. The doctor in my booth was a white-mustached old man who hardly smiled and didn’t say a single word as he jabbed a sharp edge inside me. Liquid sank into muscle, my arm turned swollen and numb. At that moment, the violin and piano climbed a mesmerizing scale and ended on a cutting note. The hall erupted with applause and bravos.
I would forever remember that day as the day my passport ID magically became my social security number and I got a Pfizer shot while listening to a live violin concert. All for free, no questions asked.
The Genius of Romania’s Vaccination Campaign
A “vaccination marathon” is everything that the name implies. Every country in the world right now wants to vaccinate as many people as possible at the fastest speed. In Romania, the first vaccination marathons kicked off on May 7th at two locations in downtown Bucharest. These went on non-stop for 64 hours — over the span of four days — and involved 1,200 volunteers, including: doctors, medical students, and other residents. I was one of the 6,700 people vaccinated at this event.
In addition to vaccination marathons, Romania has launched mobile vaccination centers as well as vaccination drive-thrus, where residents can receive their free jabs without prior registration.
Romania has also combined its stellar organization skills with youthful creativity. Bran Castle, home to the world-famous vampire from the Bram Stoker classic, Dracula, has also opened as a vaccination center to attract tourists with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get stabbed in a vampire’s residence. What’s more, those vaccinated here receive a free ticket to the castle’s exhibition of medieval torture methods. Since coronavirus, tourism has had to follow an altered agenda and Romania hasn’t backed away from the challenge.
The Romanian government currently plans to vaccinate half of its population by the beginning of August. It looks to be pretty on track.
