Image:cenblog.org
As of today, January 8, a mere 6.8 million out of 20 million doses of COVID vaccine released for distribution in December have been administered. This is scandalous. Excuses abound, chief among them that healthcare workers are refusing vaccination in astounding numbers.
So?
The point is?
Go to the next group on the priority list. The is a priority list, no?
Taking a trip down memory lane to 19.5 years ago when the 9/11 attacks were immediately followed by anthrax attacks. 2001 was the year when not only our security vulnerabilities were exposed, but when we realized that we had no plans on the shelf for the mass vaccination of the population. We were now in the age of bioterrorism, and we were naked and exposed.
Fast-forward to 2021.
We STILL have no plans on the shelf for rapid, efficient, mass vaccination of the public. Public health officers and military personnel who began their government service in 2001 will be retiring on 20-year pensions this year, and we still have no plans in place for vaccinating the public in an emergency.A full generation and we’re still groping for the light switch in the dark. This has been the greatest bi-partisan governmental failure in living memory. This entire operation has the look and feel of an ad hoc endeavor.
If not seeing to a distribution operation while the vaccines were in development is a failure of the Trump Team, incoming President Biden is about to dump a truckload of gasoline onto the fire. He is proposing to just flood the country will all the vaccine we have in stock. That’s not the answer at all. It will only make matters worse by adding a free-for-all carnival atmosphere where black marketeers will obtain stocks of vaccine illegally, where stocks of the temperature-sensitive and fragile vaccine will not all be stored properly (leading to spoilage), and where countless Americans will be injected with inert material, providing no protective benefit at all. Add to that the reality that the mad dash and haphazard distribution will mean people missing the optimal window for the critical second dose, which boosts the level of antibody made.
The issue isn’t availability. The issue is a lack of distribution logistics.
But this is the same government that spent trillions of dollars on Obamacare and couldn’t create a functional website for years to get people enrolled.
The solution begins with the mayors and governors. Every mayor should get his/her police chief, fire chief, and director of public health into the mayor’s office and let them know that they have 14 days to draft a plan to get the entire city/town vaccinated in a week, or they’re fired. Mayor Koch in New York was famous for that kind of management of civic planning. How hard is it, really, to find appropriate space, especially with so many businesses that went belly-up in the pandemic, and whose spaces go unoccupied?
The mayors then need to report their needs to the state, and the governors need to tap the state police and national guard for the safe and efficient delivery of vaccine stocks.
All of this should have been put in place during the anthrax attacks of 20 years ago and updated annually.
It’s time for some leadership in America.
It’s long overdue.
Coming Home 
Sorry to be so biased but as for me I trust God more than this hasty suppossed fix. You are implying making this mandatory and this alone is enough to stiffen the resistance of those of us who might otherwise agree if the science was irrefuttible which it is not.
Once you go down this rabbit hole and new strains are somehow unleashed you are one stuck guinea pig.
I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s paranoia, but there is not one word that I have written to imply a mandatory administration.
…they have 14 days to draft a plan to get the entire city/town vaccinated in a week, or they’re fired…
Entire city / town…sounds mandatory yo me.
You’re right, Michael. They should only plan to get half the city or town vaccinated. Then, if any more people want vaccinations we tell them that they are shit out of luck, because we had people whose paranoia didn’t permit allowing for everyone to be vaccinated if they wanted it because it looked like a mandatory program if we included the possibility of everyone getting protection.
The Public Health world doesn’t revolve around the paranoia of the anti-vaxxers, Michael. Public Health planning needs to account for every citizen, and then people can opt out if they please.
Funny I don’t believe I am the or as you seem to want to judge me, paranoid. I am a rational person too Dr. What you may not see right now is the that you are advocating 300+ million doses oqf these vaccines to be quickly produced, distributed and/or indefinitely stored and potentially administered just in case a they prove effective and in case they prove neccessary for the vast majority of healthy Americans who do not need it in the first place.
Kind of like chasing your tail.
Try to keep up with the class, Michael. In this post I am advocating getting the infrastructure in place for 328 million people to get vaccinated, if they want it. Now you say the vaccines are not necessary. I need to be perfectly clear about one thing:
I do not abide truth-denying or trolling on my blog.
Period.
I’m a ruthless censor. If you believe there is no need for vaccinations with 375,000 dead and counting, this is not the place for you. All future demnials of reality will be blocked. I have better things to do with my time and I won’t allow my blog to become a radioactive wasteland inhabited by illiterati or trolls.