LIBERALISM MEETS REALITY, CH. 12,186 (vaccine distribution)

[PeteS in CA]

LIBERALISM MEETS REALITY, CH. 12,186

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/02/liberalism-meets-reality-ch-12186.php

,,, today’s unintentionally hilarious headline for a David Leonhardt column in the New York Times: “The Left’s Vaccine Problem.” ... as the subtitle makes clear, it is about the obvious incompetence of governments just about everywhere to roll out the COVID vaccine, as the self-answering subhed makes clear:  “Why aren’t progressive leaders doing a better job at mass vaccination?”

But over the last few weeks, as vaccination has become a top priority, the pattern has changed. Progressive leaders in much of the world are now struggling to distribute coronavirus vaccines quickly and efficiently:

Europe’s vaccination rollout “has descended into chaos,” as Sylvie Kauffmann of Le Monde, the French newspaper, has written. One of the worst performers is the Netherlands, which has given a shot to less than 2 percent of residents.

Canada (at less than 3 percent) is far behind the U.S. (about 8.4 percent).

Within the U.S., many Democratic states — like California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and tiny Rhode Island — are below the national average.

Alaska and West Virginia have the two highest vaccination rates among U.S. states, with Oklahoma and the Dakotas also above average. ...
...
Why? A common problem seems to be a focus on process rather than on getting shots into arms. Some progressive leaders are effectively sacrificing efficiency for what they consider to be equity. . .

Some blue states have also created intricate rules about who qualifies for a vaccine and then made a big effort to keep anybody else from getting a shot. These complicated rules have slowed vaccination in both California and New York.

“Across New York State,” my colleague Dana Rubinstein has written, medical providers have had “to throw out precious vaccine doses because of difficulties finding patients who matched precisely with the state’s strict vaccination guidelines — and the steep penalties they would face had they made a mistake.”

[Cyber Liberty]

Liberals may "meet reality," but they'll never give it more than a passing nod.

[PeteS in CA]

Liberals may "meet reality," but they'll never give it more than a passing nod.

The first paragraph of the article gives a similar quip from Winston Churchill. I didn't include it in what I quoted so as to include more that was directly relevant to the article topic. Time for my Over-Explainers Annoymorous meeting.

[PeteS in CA]

Why the Vaccine Distribution Went Badly

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/james-meigs/america-vaccine-problem/

But then Operation Warp Speed hit a nationwide speed bump. Shipping the vaccine to thousands of distribution points went more slowly than anticipated. And even with doses on hand, health-care organizations, pharmacy chains, and state health officials weren’t initially prepared to administer shots at the hoped-for pace. By the time the New Year’s ball had dropped in Times Square, fewer than 4 million people had been vaccinated. At that rate, it would take years to inoculate the entire U.S. population.

The press responded to the news with a mix of dismay and poorly concealed jubilation. “Trump’s rollout of the COVID vaccine is an utter fiasco,” crowed the Los Angeles Times. An “astonishing failure,” echoed a New York Times editorial. You could almost sense their relief; they wouldn’t have to give the departing administration grudging credit for a public-health victory after all. Instead, they labored to uncover any screw-up—no matter how localized or inconsequential—that could be laid on the White House lawn.
...
Some of these concerns can be blamed on Trump and his Warp Speed team. But others reveal the frightening ways in which progressive political ideologies have infiltrated our public-health system. While early-20th-century progressives focused relentlessly on health for all—with food- and drug-safety laws, sanitation improvements, and anti-malaria efforts—today’s progressives have a different focus. For too many, the question isn’t how to save the most lives; it’s which lives deserve to be saved.
...
Some states, including West Virginia and North Dakota, are following straightforward approaches focused primarily on vaccinating the elderly. Not surprisingly, both those states have managed to do far better than most in getting doses into arms. New York, on the other hand, announced a more Byzantine strategy, one that put young residents of drug-treatment facilities, among others, ahead of most elderly people. (After a sharp backlash, the state eventually expanded access for residents 75 and older.) And woe betide any health-care provider that deviates from the protocols. One New York health-care network that briefly offered vaccinations to elderly New Yorkers who weren’t in the highest priority group is now under investigation by the state police and the department of health for “health-care fraud.”

In a classic case of “elite panic,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an executive order threatening any health-care provider that administers the vaccine to an unapproved person with a $1 million fine and the loss of medical licenses. With the state’s infection rate surging beyond even last spring’s horrific levels, the governor decided to focus on menacing providers who vaccinate too broadly. Doubling down, he also threatened providers with $100,000 fines if they don’t administer their vaccines fast enough. ...

Governor Cuomo also cracked down on county officials who were poised to roll out their own mass-vaccination campaigns. In recent years, New York county health departments received millions in federal grants to create emergency vaccination centers in schools, fire stations, and civic centers. They’d recruited volunteers and held annual flu-vaccination drives for practice. Just before Christmas, Cuomo pulled the plug on those efforts, announcing that the state’s vaccine supply would initially be distributed only through hospitals under the governor’s direct supervision. “We’re still waiting to hear back from them,” one county spokesman said about efforts to coordinate with the state health officials. Meanwhile, as of the first week of January, New York State had administered only about a third of the doses it had been allocated. The rest sat in refrigerators, ticking toward expiration.

There's substantial BS in this article: the OWS peeps gave the states months of warning that vaccine approval was imminent; once the vaccine doses are in the "hands" of state and local authorities the Feds have no authority over the distribution. The article author does not "get" that, at all.

The article accurately calls out ND and WV as being effective in getting people vaccinated. Bogey-state South Dakota has been as well. Many states doing poorly are doing so because of narrow limitations and insane inflexibility (a $1M fine for vaccinating at the end of a day someone not yet eligible instead of throwing away a dose that would otherwise expire ... seriously?!).

And then there's Cuomo throwing out existing plans on the eve of receiving vaccine doses. Just. Moronic.

A week ago the gap between doses delivered and doses injected was a little below 20 million; as of yesterday morning the gap was a little under 22 million. There is no problem with the companies and Feds getting vaccine doses to the states. The problem is that many states are not doing their job well.