Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson is investigating the COVID-19 vaccine.

When I enrolled in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trial in December, it occurred to me that it was my most productive chance to get coverage against the killer virus before it defeated my immune system.

It was a double-blind test, which meant that neither I nor the test team knew if the injection I won in mid-December was genuine, or a saltwater placebo that would do nothing to prevent coronavirus.

This is a component of a national examination of 30,000 Americans, many of us over the age of 65, to determine whether the vaccine already approved in the UK and India can be approved through the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D. C.

I agreed to participate in the exam, led by Dr. Barry Zingman of Rye Brook, knowing that examination protocols would look up if the vaccine was available for a 67-year-old boomer like me.

That’s the time.

At the time of my first inoculation, the availability of the vaccine seemed as remote to someone like me, born before 1955. We were rightly relegated to Category 1C, away from the millions of physical care personnel, lifeguards, first line essential. have staff and those over the age of 75.

Then I came here this week through the Centers for Disease Control that other people over the age of 65 were upgraded to Category 1B. I felt like I had earned my loyalty miles on American Airlines for an improvement in commercial elegance. enough seats.

I needed to go get a date. Me and tens of thousands more people in the area.

My moment at the AstraZeneca trial at Montefiore Medical Center scheduled for Friday. I wanted to know if the genuine or the placebo had won. After all, 6% of all New Yorkers have contracted COVID-19 in the past 11 months. And one in 30 of those who tested positive for coronavirus died.

Just this week, I learned from a friend of years of training that her mother and brother died of COVID-19, within a day of each other. Two other friends came with him after Christmas. The virus is getting closer every day.

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So on Tuesday I went on a date to get the vaccine, I did everything I could.

I checked the data from the Putnam County Department of Health, the county in which I live. County leader MaryEllen Odell said Putnam won only three hundred doses this week for others over the age of 75, lifeguards, physical care staff and others living in retirement. Homes.

I called the New York State vaccination hotline. An ad recorded told me that due to the large volume of calls, the line was cut. The message referred me to the New York State Department of Health. There, they told me to call the hotline. He also allowed me if I was eligible. I entered my information, adding my year of birth 1953.

I qualified!

I was provided with a large number of providers, the Westchester County Department of Health, the Putnam County Department of Health and a multitude of pharmacies, from Hyde Park in Dutchess County to the Bronx.

There were no appointments in Westchester, despite the announcement that the Westchester County Center would be remodeled into a vaccine distribution center. None of the pharmacies had doses. I begged him to be back in a day or two.

Drug World in Cold Spring had a link to its website, where I checked in in case the vaccine was available. I imagine I was lucky on Wednesday when I got an email in the middle of the afternoon, saying the appointments would be made online in two hours. . I clicked on the site several times.

It’s luck.

Another postwar friend in Westchester told me that she had gotten a date at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and that she didn’t know how to make an appointment.

I tried Drug World on Thursday morning. Hit two there.

Then my cousin who lives in Bedford emailed me, noting that he and his wife had discovered vaccine appointments at Essen Health Care on East 138th Street in the South Bronx. I knew the neighborhood, with the gym a block from the pantry. Santa Ana.

Before the pandemic, this is where I was driving Sunday morning with a daytime bread car from Panera and ShopRite to Mount Kisco according to the Ministry of Food in st. Mark’s Episcopal at Mount Kisco.

After spending 15 minutes on hold, I contacted a planner, who was also working remotely, with a chicken doing a background song, and she booked me an appointment for January 20.

On the existing appointment, I informed the team of my “request to lift blinds”.

Last afternoon, I went blind, with a vaccine or salt water in a position for my left arm today.

Follow Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson on Facebook or Twitter: davidmckay415.