Everyone Relax, Martha Got the Vax

Martha Stewart, 79, has been vaccinated, ensuring, at least for the moment, the continued longevity of discounted Martha Stewart Living on Macy’s shelves across America, and hopefully many more years of patently ridiculous Instagram posts about her farmstead lifestyle.

On Instagram, the ankle bracelet designer and lifestyle guru posted video of her vaccination process, just moments before the shot itself. She wrote:

I was vaccinated today in a designated vaccine pod near the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Downtown I am so proud of and grateful to the doctors, nurses and medical staff who are wading through the red tape and confusion of the distribution of these very important vaccines. I am excited to have received my dosage and look forward to the booster. The doctors told me 10,000 applications were received by Mount Sinai right after the state released this batch of vaccines.

The story here, it turns out, is not that Martha Stewart was simply vaccinated, amid at least 10,000 other applicants. It’s that Martha Stewart received said vaccine in her own hospital wing, during a nationwide distribution crisis. Obviously, money did not change hands, but it does speak to larger problems in how the vaccine has rolled out: In New York alone, entire batches of vaccines were thrown out by providers who claim they were forced to by state officials, according to a report in the Times. Those strict guidelines were just eased up on Sunday, meaning Stewart was likely at the front of the line when restrictions on distribution lifted.

Truly, there is no better summation of the national pandemic than a beloved TV celebrity receiving a vaccine in a hospital wing with her name on it. And it’s not just New York. The Washington Post reported on January 5 that wealthy donors at a Florida nursing home were given vaccinations before even the hospital workers. Ryna Greenbaum, a board member with a street on the site’s campus named after her, spoke with the Post and said the CEO of MorseLife Health Systems had called her and asked “if I wanted to have a vaccine,” because “I’m one of the people who has given him some money.”

As for the Martha Stewart Center for Living, the first was built as Mount Sinai Hospital’s outpatient clinic on Madison Avenue after Stewart donated $5 million, in 2007. According to reports at the time, Stewart helped “select the bonsai tree as the center’s symbol, and approved the grey tile work, earthtone paints, and stainless steel accents proposed by Pei Partnership Architects.” In 2019, Mount Sinai opened yet another Martha Stewart Center for Living at Union Square in Downtown Manhattan.

So, for anyone not in a vulnerable population already, and are desperate enough for an early vaccine, it costs at least two hospital wings’ worth of charity!