They had nine months


All the fumbling that's going on around the Covid vaccine rollout is really disappointing. Anyone could have told you that there'd be hard feelings about who gets to go first. And so you would have thought we would have spent the summer and fall settling on a set of priorities, and making sure that everyone at least knew where they stood before the first doses arrived.

But like everything else, the people in charge (if anyone is, in fact, in charge) were too busy pumping out the platitudes. In Oregon, the state health authority keeps crowing about how equitable they are going to be. Equity this, equity that, blah blah blah. 

But that talk is mighty cheap. Here's the latest outrage, from my law school alma mater:

Only seven of about 5,000 doses in Stanford Medicine’s first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations were allocated to its front-line residents and fellows, according to an open letter from chief residents. Over a hundred protested the rollout at Stanford Hospital on Friday morning....

Tolani said residents had not been included in the first wave of vaccinations due to the algorithm Stanford Medicine is using to determine who gets priority. One element of priority was the unit staff are in; since residents switch between units, they were not assigned a location, and by extension, no priority, according to Tolani. Age also likely pushed them down the list.

Why are they just now talking about this? And the same thing is playing out everywhere I look. 

Why aren't there 10 priority categories, with everyone knowing exactly which category they're in and which category we're currently on? We've had dashboards galore telling us how many people are dead from Covid. Where are the dashboards with the vaccination progress and forecasts?

What a weak nation we have become. We have to do better than this.

Comments

  1. There are 3 categories:

    1. Wealthy
    2. White
    3. Everyone else

    We're always surprised to discover this. We're watching the wealthy get theirs right in front of us. Some of them are even doing it on camera!

    Next up will be the whites. We'll all be surprised at how quickly it got to us. "Golly," we'll say, "there must be plenty to go around if it got to little 'ole me!" It'll be available at every CVS, Target, Safeway, and Kroger by Valentine's Day. You'll just need to show your insurance card.

    As for Category 3, you'll have to ask McConnell. Congress will likely close the door quickly on getting it out "for free". Better dead than have socialism.

    And that's how the pandemic ends...

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  2. Much prefer the convenience of getting vaccinated while picking up my olive bread and salmon at the local New Seasons. There's absolutely no reason why the feds could not make this happen. I have no desire to be in the "everyone else" category.

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  3. Well what WILL happen and what should happen is obvious to anyone paying attention. Most of Oregon politicians have spent the last few years resisting Donald Trump, trying to change Mother Nature, and glomming on to every wacky social justice cause that pops up.

    Case in point, they are bound and determined to spend every last penny of the Oregon Cares act and of course the thing is full of pork. Five million to black and indigenous artists, equity this and inequity that. Taking care of the nuts and bolts is much too tiresome when there are dollars to tax and spend.

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  4. I read the Stanford article and yep.......business as usual. They probably dole the vaccine out first to the highest paid and the tenured staff. And yes, the state of Oregon Covid vaccine page seems more concerned about righting past wrongs than it does in solving a public health crisis. These people are insane.

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