Second booster shot: Toto, I don't think we're in Germany any more. [View all]

[DFW]

When my wife and I tried to get our first booster shots, we were turned away. The German rigidity for rules won out over common sense, as it usually does here. The vaccination centers had been given guidelines that booster shots were to be given six months after the second vaccination. Our second vaccinations had been on May 10th. We showed up at the vaccination center in Wuppertal, the closest one to us that offered Moderna, last November 6th. They looked at our documents, and said NEIN! Your last vaccination was May 10th. It won't be six months until four days from now. Come back then. No discussions!

So we drove the 45 minutes back home, cursing the German "Ordnungsbesessenheit," and got our boosters the next weekend.

We will be traveling to the USA in early April, so we wanted to get our second booster shots well before two weeks prior to departure. My wife said there was a vaccination center at the Düsseldorf central train station. Neither of us fulfilled the curent guidelines of our first booster being at least 4 months old (one day early), or us being at least 70 years old (I was a week early for that). But what the hell, it's only a 16 minute commuter train ride down to Düsseldorf, and both of us are booked solid for the next week, maybe more. We thought we'd try to play upon someone's lack of rigidity.

We got there, told the people at the reception why we were "early," and hoped for the best.

Maybe we were lucky that there were no Germans at the reception area. There were Pakistanis, Africans, Middle-Easterners, but not a German in sight. They all spoke fluent German, but didn't act like Germans. Since my 70th birthday is next Saturday, and my first booster was only one day shy of four months back, they waved me through. My wife had a tougher time, since she won't be 70 until late June, but she said look, my husband and I are headed to the USA on April 8th, and we need the boosters to be a few weeks in the past. She's a charming tall blonde who looks twenty years younger, and she knows how to make it work for her if need be. She got approved as well.

We got all the paperwork filled out and approved within 20 minutes, and then got sent on to the doctors doing the actual vaccinations. THEY were German. They asked us questions, made unnecessary explanations (they said they were required to), and then talked about the vaccine. My wife's doctor recommended she get a fourth dose of Moderna, since "they like that in the USA." My doctor recommended Biontech (Pfizer) to vary the mix a little. I said, fine, whatever. The way things are going, it looks like we'll all need new boosters every four to six monthe for the next five years, anyway.

Last stop before the departure waiting area was the desk where we got the EU vaccination passports with the QR code proving our vaccinations. These are only a printed sheet of paper with places to fold them two times. We got them, and went to the waiting area. They want everyone getting vaccinations to wait about 30 minutes in case there are serious reactions, and they had a couple of paramedics right there to take care of any such cases. There weren't many people in the waiting area, and they looked bored. Good!

While in the waiting area, I noticed the guy printing out the EU passes had made a spelling error with my name. I went back to him and asked if he could re-do my EU pass for me. He wasn't thrilled, but there was little else to do, and it HAD been his mistake after all. I looked at his name tag, and guessed. "Pakistani?" I asked. Sure enough, he was indeed Pakistani. I thanked him in Urdu, and got a BIG smile along with my new EU vaccination passport with my name correctly spelled. You have to show your ID when you get these things, and so he saw I was from the USA. I doubt he saw many Americans at a Düsseldorf vaccination center, and even fewer who would recognize a Pakistani name, and fewer still who would say something to him in his native language.

After the waiting period, my wife and I walked back into the station, got the commuter train back to our small town, and drove home. The whole thing, from walking out the door to walking back in the door took about two hours, total. Neither of us have had any bad reaction so far.

A very ATYPICALLY German afternoon in Germany. Well worth the time spent, I'd say.