The following is a transcript of a Tuesday afternoon briefing conducted in a converted hotel conference room outside Bethesda. The interview subject is a senior implementation coordinator for the federal immunization rollout, speaking on background. He is wearing a lanyard with three badges on it.
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FRIED OCEAN: Let’s start simple. The Trump vaccine plan requires forty-seven separate shots.
COORDINATOR: Forty-seven injections, yes. Sequential.
FO: Why forty-seven?
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COORDINATOR: Great question. Next question.
FO: Each shot has to be administered by a different guy named Doug.
COORDINATOR: A different Doug, correct. That’s a hard requirement. It’s not a guideline, it’s not a best practice. If Doug four also gives you shot nineteen, the whole sequence is invalidated and you start over at Doug one.
FO: Medically, what does the second Doug do that the first Doug can’t?
COORDINATOR: Medically? Nothing. Structurally? Everything.
FO: Can a Douglas administer a shot?
COORDINATOR: Douglas is fine if he goes by Doug. Douglas who goes by Douglas is a compliance issue. We had a clinic in Reno run eleven days on a Douglas and we had to reinoculate the entire county.
FO: What about Dougie.
COORDINATOR: Dougie is under review. There’s an appeals process.
FO: Are these Dougs nurses?
COORDINATOR: Some of them. A lot of them came out of the gig economy, honestly. We advertised on the delivery apps. You’d be amazed how many guys named Doug are currently driving a Corolla with a bag of somebody’s pad thai in it. We offered $19 an hour and a polo. The polos are the same. That was intentional, so patients don’t fixate on individual Dougs.
FO: Do the Dougs know each other?
COORDINATOR: We discourage it. Once Dougs socialize, they start comparing technique, and then you get one Doug who thinks he’s the good Doug. That’s how a clinic dies.
FO: How long does the full Trump vaccine plan take, start to finish?
COORDINATOR: Six to nine months, assuming Doug availability. Rural counties are the challenge. There are parts of Montana with four Dougs total and one of them is eighty-one and won’t come down from the ridge.
FO: What happens if a Doug quits halfway through my sequence?
COORDINATOR: Then you’re a partial. You’re carrying twenty-three shots of protection against something, and we’re not fully clear on what, and you can’t get the rest until we source a fresh Doug.
FO: Sir, is any of this immunizing anyone against anything?
COORDINATOR: (long exhale) We have onboarded eleven thousand Dougs. Ask me about the Dougs.