NYC Vaccination Pods Are “Ghost Towns.” Say, “We Blew It”

[PeteS in CA]

NYC Vaccination Pods Are “Ghost Towns.” Say, “We Blew It”

https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2021/02/07/nyc-vaccination-pods-ghost-towns-say-blew/

Nearly all areas of the country have set up what have come to be known as “pods” (points of dispensing) where people in approved categories can make appointments to receive the COVID vaccine. Each state and municipality has its own system for organizing and operating these pods, but some are clearly not working as well as others. ... After seeing some initial successes, the pods in the Big Apple have, according to workers operating them, turned into “ghost towns.” Workers are standing by and ready to go but they either have no customers or no vaccines to administer… sometimes both. ...
...
I have some experience in this issue, having a close family member who was hired by a contractor that’s operating some of the pods. The two differences between the situation in New York City and what we’ve seen is that we’re considerably further upstate and the pods here are run by the state, not the city. Both of these factors play a role.

When this system was first set up, the state, under Governor Andrew Cuomo, set up a pod system covering most of New York. Gothan (sic) set up their own system of 15 pods run by the city’s Department of Health. But it’s the state that controls the receipt and distribution of the vials, so the initial supplies have been going to the state pods first and there isn’t always enough left over to send to all of the city pods. ...

The city’s pods are in even worse shape, however. One worker at the pod shown in the video above said that they had as many as 700 doses, but almost no appointments. They asked if they could start vaccinating walk-in patients, but they were denied permission. (In New York you can face heavy penalties for vaccinating people out of turn.) This means that they wind up spoiling and discarding some number of doses on a regular basis.
...
What this all comes down to is a botched distribution system and rigid rules for who is allowed to make an appointment. People are showing up at some of these pods in the city asking to be vaccinated and they are being denied, even though there are plenty of doses available and workers ready to immunize them. Parts of this problem are fixable, but it’s going to require better management and leadership than what is currently being observed.

In "fairness" to the State of NY, their vaccination % is .1% better than the national % ... which is pretty sad. And "sad" pretty much sums up how news like this affects me. Trump's OWS set up for what could have been a rousing success, getting vaccine doses from factories into people's arms. The Feds did "their part"; many states have not. CA is doing a bit worse than NY, but so far I haven't seen news stories about ways CA is screwing up.

[PeteS in CA]

This NY Post article gives a detailed look at what's happening, https://nypost.com/2021/02/06/hundreds-of-covid-vaccine-doses-unused-in-nyc-over-the-weekend/ . NY and NYC's inefficient and inflexible "system" is resulting in PODs wasting scores of doses on many days. I wonder what % of the doses NY has received ended up being trashed because of NY's inefficient, uncoordinated, inflexible distribution "system".

[Smokin Joe]

So who is paying for the discarded doses of a vaccine that has an incredibly complex set of storage requirements, and is that benefiting the producers?

[PeteS in CA]

1. The storage requirements for Pfizer and Moderna were known many months ago. Storage at dry ice temperature (Pfizer) is not that exotic, since dry ice can be purchased at ordinary grocery stores. Moderna's storage temperature is in the same range as an ordinary home freezer.

2. The Pfizer, Moderna, and other three vaccine vendors' purchase contracts are for fixed numbers of doses at a fixed price (in the cases of AZ, J & J, and Novavax, their contracts go into effect if/when they receive Emergency Use Authorization). Wastage has no effect on those contracts unless it becomes extreme that an extra option (fixed quantity and price) has to be exercised.

[Smokin Joe]

1. The storage requirements for Pfizer and Moderna were known many months ago. Storage at dry ice temperature (Pfizer) is not that exotic, since dry ice can be purchased at ordinary grocery stores. Moderna's storage temperature is in the same range as an ordinary home freezer.

2. The Pfizer, Moderna, and other three vaccine vendors' purchase contracts are for fixed numbers of doses at a fixed price (in the cases of AZ, J & J, and Novavax, their contracts go into effect if/when they receive Emergency Use Authorization). Wastage has no effect on those contracts unless it becomes extreme that an extra option (fixed quantity and price) has to be exercised.

But.. but...as dry ice sublimates, it releases (because it is) CO2.

Actually, it is pretty hard to get here, just because 6 months out of the year you don't need it to keep your groceries cold. (present outside static air temp is -8 F)

[PeteS in CA]

...
Actually, it is pretty hard to get here, just because 6 months out of the year you don't need it to keep your groceries cold. (present outside static air temp is -8 F)

I don't follow dry ice availability at the local Lucky (store), but I would not be surprised if it's seasonal ... picnic season, .

[Smokin Joe]

I don't follow dry ice availability at the local Lucky (store), but I would not be surprised if it's seasonal ... picnic season, .

Oh, the time of year we just use regular frozen water.