A Texas doctor had a gloomy choice one night in late December. The remaining doses in a bottle of COVID-19 vaccine would break down in a few hours, unless they are injected into patients who want to, but Dr. Hasan Gokal could not find enough of them. Instead of throwing them away, Gokal traveled to his community, digging up enough people willing to take the vaccines before they expired. With only a few minutes left and no one else at hand, Gokal gave the final dose to his wife.
Is Gokal a hero who ensures that these doses have led to vaccinations, increasing efforts to reduce community transmission? Or is Gokal a thief and, worse, a murderer against “equity”?
The Texas doctor had six hours. Now that a bottle of Covid-19 vaccine had been opened on the night of late December, he had to find 10 people eligible for the remaining doses before the precious drug expired. In six hours.
Fighting, the doctor called home and directed people to his home outside Houston. Some were known; others, foreigners. A ninety-year-old tied to the bed. An 80-year-old woman with dementia. A mother with a child using a fan.
After midnight and just minutes before the vaccine became unusable, the doctor, Hasan Gokal, gave the last dose to his wife, who has a lung disease that leaves her short of breath.
For his actions, Dr. Gokal was fired from his government position and then charged with stealing 10 doses of vaccine worth a total of $ 135 – an avoidable crime that sent him his name and cup fire twisting around the globe.
Aha, some might think, the dose for his wife is what triggered the authorities. However, Gokal’s wife has severe chronic lung dysfunction and may have qualified according to federal standards to receive the shots at the time. However, this was not the problem that triggered Gokal’s employer. Instead, Gokal’s lack of focus on “equity” tipped the scales and led to his dismissal, at least according to Gokal’s testimony:
A few days later, the doctor said that the supervisor and the human resources director called him to ask if he had given 10 doses outside the December 29 scheduled event. and was immediately fired.
Officials claimed he violated the protocol and should have returned the remaining doses to the office or discarded them, the doctor recalled. He also said that one of the officials surprised him by asking about the lack of “equity” among those he vaccinated.
“Are you suggesting there were too many Indian names in that group?” Dr. Gokal said he asked.
Exactly, he said he was told.
This was – and still is – the problem with the launch of the vaccine. Officials inside and outside the government have focused on issues of “equity” to such an extent that they would prefer spoil vaccine doses than to allow them to enter willing arms. It’s not that equity issues don’t matter at all, but a deadly pandemic needs vaccinations to get as wide and fast as possible. Each missed dose is another person who can still spread the virus and cause mutations that could worsen the pandemic.
Instead of saluting Gokal’s agility in making sure no dose was wasted, his employer consecrated him, and Harris County prosecutors accused him of theft. A judge rejected the accusation, writing that he “emphatically rejects” the notion of theft in the context of a doctor who vaccinates people in the middle of a public health emergency. However, prosecutors then decided to take the case to the grand jury to see if they could reinstate the theft charge against Gokal.
However, we must ask ourselves what another judge will do with the case, even with a grand jury bill, after rebuking Judge Franklin Bynum to prosecutors for the first time. We hope that the judge will realize that this clown show is short with a car. Gokal must be reinstated and satisfied, not removed from his profession to ensure that doses of COVID-19 vaccine are not wasted. And we have to ask ourselves how many doses remain to be ruined to this day because of the spectacle of this persecution of Gokal because he has just done his job.