When hundreds of millions of shots need to be distributed it cant be left to our struggling healthcare infrastructure to distribute them. This required a national strategy, national funding, and national coordination using federal resources, including mobilizing the military if needed. This is an enormous undertaking. Hell, we dont even know who and when people are eligible to get the vaccine because every state is implementing their own hierarchy and most dont even know what that is yet.
Right. And it will be. But when only 20 million are available and have to be risk stratified it has to be local. There are dramatic differences in health care systems. Prisma and SF have done it well and as quickly as possible. But they aren’t remotely similar. Nursing homes are and will be a cluster.
Private non hospital affiliated doctors are being told to kick rocks in SC, its flipping criminal. Whereas my mother in New Orleans, who is 75 and healthy, will be getting her email to schedule her vaccine appt tomorrow.
I agree to a point, in fact the lack of trust in science is already caused a lot of what was America to fall. We live in a country that doesn’t even believe in the science of gender. Doesn’t believe in the science of human life in the uterus. We don’t believe in math either while we are at it.
Right. The unintended result of the (relatively) new Hospitalist phenomenon. As a surgeon I used to somewhat know or know of every doctor in the metro. Not now. No FP or internist sets foot in hospitals in the upstate anymore. There are pluses and minuses. But clearly a minus would be not getting a vaccine as a legitimate front line worker.
I think this strategy is actually prudent and should have been part of the initial plan (maybe it was and I have overlooked it). There should have been a first wave of health care workers volunteer to be vaccinated and monitored for side effects. No sense in vaccinating an entire hospital staff all at once and having many of them incapacitated with side effects all at once).
Federal coordination does not mean you abdicate participation by the state and local governments and the private healthcare system and send the feds in to do everything. It means you utilize every state and local resource, factor them into your national strategy, identify the gaps and then develop a plan to fill those gaps. Are those gaps in equipment, trained personnel, distribution, etc.? They are probably different everywhere. When you identify the gaps and deficiencies at the state and local level the federal government needs to take action to address those. Maybe it is mobilization of federal agencies, the military, or maybe it is using the DPA to manufacture and provide equipment like freezers or supplies needed to produce and distribute a vaccine. Very little of that has taken place. That is what the federal government is for. It’s why we are the United States of America and not just individual nation states.
The states are so incredibly incompetent?! Does POTUS have to do everything. Dammit people, get your crap together.
I don’t think you should blame the Fed Gov. the issue, just like with most other issues like crime, is with the states and local gov. I know my PT, had knee replacement, told me yesterday that he was getting the vaccine next week. That’s in NC.
What do you actually know about the distribution process? I’m not even sure what some of this post means.
I know multiple teachers and this year has just been brutal. Much respect for what they are going through.
Eh. They have to prioritize. But they also need to be quicker about flexing into other groups.
Not true. Every state had to have a distribution plan reviewed by the CDC well before a vaccine was even approved.
I think there’s been poor execution on the part of some states. I’ve been off work since pretty much the day they started vaccination in Illinois, so I’ve missed a few of the update calls with the Dept of Public Health, CDC, and other groups. There were a lot of planning calls before that, and the state seemed pretty confident about getting the doses out, even if they were apprehensive about people’s reluctance to get vaccinated and how the vaccines that needed ultra-cold storage could be stored safely.
you no clue what you’re talking about dips
absolutely...same situation here...this has been a crap year for my wife as a teacher....stupid, ill informed generalization
Listen to this guy, not people with political or ideological bones to pick.
I don’t think what @PalmettoTiger1 was talking about is generalizable to all teachers, but he was referring to a specific teacher who is a union leader, and who has been advocating against opening schools. Meanwhile, she apparently thought it was safe to travel to Puerto Rico, and thought it was wise to post a picture of herself sipping a drink on the beach. That makes it look less like she’s less concerned about safety than she is concerned about wanting to continue to work remotely. It’s just not a good look, even if there are some reasons to make distinctions between travel and working at a school.
They’ll do that when there’s enough supply. One reason to vaccinate essential workers before the middle-aged people is that there are just less of those workers, and because those people are having to expose themselves more often than random middle-aged people.
There’s already been evaluation of side-effects, though. Those are known. And many hospitals actually did do vaccination in waves to avoid potentially having a bunch of people out at once.
In IL, those folks can get vaccinated through the local health department. Might want to check with them.
