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Dolly Parton Got Her Vaccine!

Dolly Parton. Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images

Last year, country singer and patron of medical research Dolly Parton donated a generous $1 million to support the development of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine. On Tuesday, she finally got “a dose of her own medicine,” as whoever runs her social-media accounts put it on Twitter. Get it??

“I’m finally gonna get my vaccine,” Dolly said in a video posted this afternoon. “I’m old enough to get it, and I’m smart enough to get it.”

Merely getting an appointment has proved an exasperating production in many parts of the country, apparently even for Dolly, who said she’d been waiting since December. She nonetheless encouraged, or maybe more accurately challenged, all the “cowards” who are eligible but for whatever reason not getting in line to just do the thing. (“Don’t be such a chicken squat — get out there and get your shot,” was the full Dollyism.) “I’m trying to be funny now,” she said, “but I’m dead serious about the vaccine. I think we all want to get back to normal, whatever that is — that would be a great shot in the arm, wouldn’t it, if we could get back to that?”

And well yes, Dolly, it would be! But as CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently explained, “We may be done with the virus, but clearly the virus is not done with us.” New and highly contagious coronavirus variants have been spreading throughout the United States, threatening “to undo the hard-earned ground we have gained.” Although, according to Walensky, “now is not the time to relax restrictions,” a handful of governors are beginning to do just that. The good news, however, is that by the end of May, the U.S. will reportedly have enough vaccines for the entire adult population, although it will take time to inoculate everyone. Therefore, the CDC is begging of you: Please keep wearing masks.

Dolly Parton Got Her Vaccine!