Inoculation
April 20, 2020 | Texas | 20-29 years
I could have left my shift early, but I decided to stay because I was waiting for results to come back for a patient. It was 4:30 pm. I was going to wait until 5:00 pm and then leave. I grab my backpack and stroll in the hallways when the people around me started to swarm and told me to find cover. I was confused but herded with the crowd into a large high school gymnasium-like room that was completely covered in beige tile. The door was locked behind us. There was an announcement of an active shooter. Of course we were scared, but kept waiting and waiting for any announcement that it was safe to leave, but it never came. I’m sitting on the ground with my backpack in my lap and texted my mom one last text before my phone died.
Somehow a few of us found out that there was never an active shooter. It was a ruse in order to herd hospital employees into these “inoculation rooms” where we were going to be infected with COVID-19. In the pandemic, the hospital had suffered major financial losses. In order to recuperate those losses they were going to infect young and healthy medical students and hospital employees with medical insurance coverage and collect on the pay out after treating everyone. The plan was to initiate at 4:30 pm. I was internally struggling with the fact that I put myself in this situation. I should have just left early and I would have been safe. I kept repeating in my head, “Why didn’t I go home early this one time?”
I was not going to sit around and become infected. Somehow, an older gentleman (another physician) found me and offered to help me sneak out of the hospital. There was another young man (mid-20s?) with dark curly hair that was also with us. We eventually make it out of the hospital and it was night-time outside. It was pouring heavy rain but we saw headlights coming from a van. We ran to the van. Another older gentleman greeted us and said he almost left us if we took any longer.
Note: Dreamer adds, “I'm a resident physician. I also have narcolepsy so I dream a lot since I go straight into REM sleep. I've noticed I tend to have vivid dreams and remember them really well when I am under a lot of stress. Even though we haven't had the COVID surge hit Texas yet, everyone in the hospital is still very stressed because it's like waiting for the ball to drop. All this weirdness came from my brain during sleep so no conspiracy theories please. And also, this dream coincidentally happened on 4/20. I have never done drugs before.”
Please note that dream has been abbreviated due to length.
