COVID tracker: Now that I've got my vaccine card, what do I do with it? - Monadnock Ledger Transcript

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Life during the COVID Era has been, as the saying goes, one darn thing after another. The latest darn thing: Vaccination card panic.

Those cards from the CDC bearing stickers marking your vaccinations are a real-life version of Monopoly’s Get Out of Jail Free card. But they raise all sorts of new worries.

Consider this email I got from Medicare.gov, full of lots of bolded emphasis:

“Keep your vaccination card safe — scammers are using the COVID-19 pandemic to try to steal your personal information. Don’t share a photo of your COVID-19 vaccination card online or on social media. Scammers can use content you post, like your date of birth, health care details, or other personal information to steal your identity.”

If that doesn’t freak you out enough, they add this: “If someone contacts you to buy or sell a vaccination card, it’s a scam.”

The real problem is that it’s not clear how these cards are going to be used, which means it’s not clear what to do with them.

If people will ask to see my proof of vaccination every now and then, like a pandemic version of checking your ID, the card should be in my wallet. But it’s too big to fit there! Should I bend it and shove it in anyway?

On the other hand, if hardly anyone ever asks to see the card I should store it away, maybe along with that ratty yellow card which lists all my other vaccines. In that case, should I get it laminated? Framed? I could even glue it into my scrapbook.

Or maybe it doesn’t really matter. You can get a replacement card by calling 2-1-1 or even online if you’re registered with that federal VANS system, which fizzled out. Give your name and birth date and they’ll find you in the system and issue a replacement.

Which leads to another worry. That sounds too easy to me; I’m sure that fake CDC cards will quickly become a problem, further muddying the picture.

I guess I can live with the confusion. After all, the alternative would be no vaccines at all.

As far as the pandemic goes, New Hampshire is continuing to see slow improvement in most areas but is still far from being out of the woods.

You can see updated charts and other information on the Monitor’s COVID-19 page at www.concordmonitor.com/Special-Sections/Covid-19.

How are we doing on vaccinations? Slowing down.

In the two weeks leading up to May 3, just 22,000 people were added to the list of the fully vaccinated. Compare that to the two-week period around the start of April, when more than 75,000 people were added.

This slowdown isn’t unexpected. New Hampshire and many other places are shifting their focus from hosting relatively large vaccination sites and will start taking vaccines out to people, which is a much slower process. The arrival of new vaccines, especially those suitable for children, will help.

Still, it’s unfortunate that we are stalling at such a relatively low point: Just 26.3% of the state is fully vaccinated right now.

Number of new cases – what’s the trend? Getting better but still too high.

As I write, the two-week average of new cases is 257, the lowest point since mid-March, and has declined slowly but steadily for 20 days.

Number of hospitalizations – what’s the trend? No longer falling.

Number of deaths – what’s the trend? No longer falling.

The number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 has been hovering between 80 and 90 for some two weeks after a long decline and the number of daily deaths has been hovering around 1 ½ for even longer. The continued decline in new cases should be leading to more of a decline in both of these measures.

(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)

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COVID tracker: Now that I've got my vaccine card, what do I do with it? - Monadnock Ledger Transcript
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