The original post: /r/television by /u/begin111 on 2025-06-16 09:34:37.
Just watched New Amsterdam Season 3, episode Fight Time and I’m honestly shocked at how the vaccine storyline was handled.
The hospital fridge breaks, and they have a batch of COVID vaccines that will expire in 6 hours. Another doctor quickly finds enough people to take them but Max turns them away when they are literally there in line because the group isn’t “diverse enough.”
He then goes to a lower-income neighbourhood, only to find that most residents have already been vaccinated. After that, he scrambles to convince unvaccinated hospital staff to take the doses but time runs out, and the vaccines expire.
So the end result? The vaccines get thrown out. During a pandemic. Because Max didn’t think the first group of recipients was diverse enough.
I get that the show was trying to make a point about equity in healthcare and that’s a real, important issue. But in this case, he had people ready, and he chose optics over outcomes. In the real world, that decision would be a scandal. The writers just say that’s fine. No fallout. No real reflection. Just another day at New Amsterdam.
Am I the only one who found that completely infuriating?