100% agree. I have one in a school like this so I can see it work. The problem however, is I also have one at a school doing a lousy job and the state is not in good shape either and that’s concerning. There are unfortunately many states like that. It is hard to believe how polar opposite their experiences have been. And, the one who’s school is testing 2x/week has in person classes and pretty normal college experience and doesn’t really have to worry about looking over her shoulder all the time, the other one, it’s a totally different story. The school is doing nothing to stop sporting events, large social gatherings, frat parties, bars are open, mixed mask compliance, but definitely very little if any at these events. The pictures I’ve seen are scary. They also have the money to test without issue, the problem is their hands are tied by higher ups in the state. I love everything else about the school and education!
re: federal plan and money. The Governor of CA just proposed $2 billion more for schools. If he has that kinda change laying around, clearly he could have proposed a few hundred million for Public Health.
re: vaccinating college kids. Yes, several public health folks wrote articles about that idea, but the federal guidelines decided not to adopt it.
re: more vaccines to hotspots like CA. Again, federal guidelines distributed the vaccines on a pro rata basis to each state based on population. (If I was vaccine czar, I would have sent them out pro rata based on pop over 65.)
My point is that there is some federal involvement, but it clearly is not gonna satisfy everyone.
Today’s NY Times has an article on the wealthy people, especially hospital donors, who can bypass the vaccine line. Sadly, there are cheaters everywhere.
Let them have it. Better than having the vaccines sitting in the fridge, and if their donations could produce more vaccines then it is even better. We are worrying so much about people jumping the line that vaccines are not getting administered. The state agencies are afraid of getting audited in the future.
It really is a useful study in the ability of state and local governments. The states all received the vaccine on the same day, in proportion to their population. What happened afterwards varied widely.
Analogous to development (donor) admissions in colleges?
Since US society is a competitive dog-eat-dog one, it is no surprise that there are many people who try to cut in line, and many others who will greatly resent the cutters and harbor grievances based on that.
If you try to enforce fairness, you slow down vaccine distribution. If you try to emphasize speed, you leave more loopholes and opportunities for “cheaters”. Pick one since you cannot have both.
Not necessarily, if you have transparent, consistent and well-publicized rules, and if you have a well-thought-out and fully vetted nationwide plan for inoculation as well as distribution.
Define “health care worker”. And if it is detailed enough to exclude (for example) health care administrators working remotely, how much enforcement with attendant administrative overhead would you have for the rule? Or if you want to prioritize different groups of health care workers based on their risk levels, you also add administrative overhead.
Where do you draw the line with health care workers? Doctor and nurses, but not the receptionist? What about people who work in the back office? What about cleaners/janitors in the hospitals?
What about essential workers who are customer facing? Do we not include their supervisors who work in the office or support staff?
I think that’s where people are getting stuck on. They are spending too much time trying to figure out where to draw the line that they are not vaccinating people.
As far as I am concern - Just do it. More people we vaccinate it means less people will get infected, and it means there is less chance of me getting infected.
Adding…it’s also easier to administer to all folks who are in the same location…so all Hospital employees: for example. Set up the vaccine administration site in the place and you have a lot of people right there who can easily be immunized.
It does take all the employees of the hospital to make it run!
I wasn’t advocating absolute “fairness”, if there’s such a thing. We shouldn’t subdivide HCW based on their job functions, for example. Everyone at a hospital should be vaccinated together, for the sake of efficiency, if nothing else.
I honestly stay away from news and politics. I prefer it that way. So when it was mentioned Marin county is a hotspot for anti-vaxxers - I’m curious about that . . why and how that came to be.
(my sister lives there, I’m in brown town midwest). do you mind sharing any insight?
sorry about all the CV hotspots right now. In my county, my 89 yr old inlaws 1b are supposed to be able to get vaccinated in mid February. they are so anxious for it.
Marin County was one of the origins of the anti-vaccine/concern over autism hotspots. A Google search will provide many articles regarding its development.
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Ignorance is an understatement. I don’t get it. My daughter had a dental appointment yesterday and I know they have all had the opportunity to be vaccinated. She then tells me the hygenist that cleaned her teeth chose not to get it yet. That she thinks it’s “too early”. What??!! Who would pass that up? Said she would eventually get it, but not now.=quote}
I am not surprised by this. My husband and I have been to the ER and urgent care (post Covid issues) in the past weeks and I have asked every doctor and nurse if they are getting the vaccine. The security guard at the ER proudly said he already had his first dose. The nurses at the hospital said they were going to wait and see how effective/safe it is. One doctor said he already his, another said no because he’s worked the entire pandemic and hasn’t gotten sick. Today my urgent care doctor said she doesn’t believe this is really that serious since with the hundreds of Covid positive patients she’s seen since February only one had to be hospitalized, that the news coming from hospitals doesn’t tell the whole story, and that she’s remained well the entire time and doesn’t plan on getting it either.
I think this is happening more than people realize.
For God’s sake, no one plans on getting COVID! For an urgent care doctor to undermine the opinions of doctors working in COVID units - well, that’s awful and shocking. Does nearly 400,000 deaths not tell a story?!
My Twitter feed is FULL of pics of docs getting their first and second vaccine - of course there will be exceptions. The fact that many health care workers are literally in tears as they get their shot - well, that should also tell the story of how it must feel to go to work daily for 9 months and suck it up and take the chance of getting exposed.
Bingo. If the hospital board (of non-medical outsiders) has a meeting that day, jab them too.
It’s probably an understatement that we won’t have unanimity in this country. Some people, including some HCWs, can’t properly weigh the risk-reward trade-off for themselves. Having licenses to practice medicine doesn’t necessarily make all of them good assessors of such trade-offs. Don’t let them impede the progress. Give them 10 minutes to decide and move on. We need to vaccinate as many people, whether they’re HCWs or not, as quickly as we can to get ahead of the spread of the virus.
Wow that blows my mind but I guess technically I’m not surprised. Everyone I know in the medical profession can’t wait to get it or has gotten it. I can’t imagine your reaction to what your Dr said or what she’s thinking. Has she been making regular rounds at a hospital to see her patients, or does she only work at an outpatient urgent care facility? My first cousin was recently on a vent in the hospital. Her only underlying issue is asthma. Otherwise she is a healthy woman. I know people who have died from this. People who have rebound illnesses and health issues that they didn’t have prior to covid. She’s fortunate she’s remained well, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s a serious contagious virus.
@abasket Horrifying isn’t it? Can you imagine this woman giving advice to patients who as for it and they then thinking it’s ok NOT to get the vaccine? SMH.
I know Dr’s that have nurses asking them if they think it’s safe to get. I just don’t get it. I’m more afraid of not getting it than I am of getting it. Don’t we all want life to be normal again? Seeing what is happening in California, thousands of miles away from me, kills me. I barely see my parents as I don’t want to somehow unknowingly have it and give it to them or vice versa since they have a caregiver. I haven’t seen my siblings either because of this mess.
@bluebayou Yeah, unfortunately just like everything in life. You can’t please everyone.
@roycroftmom I’ve seen many reports about this in CA and they claim they will come down on people who try to buy their way to the vaccine but I seriously have wondered how they would be able to monitor that. My kids pediatrician got it the first week or second and I was shocked when she told me she was already getting her second dose this week (she told me this last week). I’d like to know how they decided which Dr’s went to the front of the line. Was it pediatric Dr’s? Seems like they would be dealing with covid patients less likely than geriatric doctors, so maybe that’s why I was so surprised she said she was already getting the 2nd dose since that meant she had it so early.
@injparent Totally agree. If the vaccine were given only at public health departments and hospitals and didn’t discriminate by the types of patients they were given to then distribution would be easy to monitor. Or at least you would think. Like it shouldn’t be hard to prove someone is in the medical field or living in a long term care facility. From there, how hard is it to prove you’re a certain age? But when private practices are given the go ahead to administer the vaccine without any oversight, then you bet the highest bidder will be getting it. Can’t wait to hear when we see the scandals or undercover stings over this.
@bluebayou Probably right. Just have one day, have everyone come in, even if it irritates some of us and jab them is right. Want the vaccine this is your chance. Make it an assembly line and be done with it. There aren’t an infinite number of hospitals. If they did this, it would cut out some of the wasted administrative bs time we are taking dealing with it. Over time, as people see either cases going down, or fewer side effects, more people will want it. @thumper1 Can do this in one day like a cafeteria food line.
If I knew how to jab someone with a vaccine I would gladly do it and I would sit and do it all day long until my hands couldn’t do it anymore. There must be tons of medical personnel that are retired, or stay at home mom’s or left the field, or that a hospital can afford to give OT to and start giving the vaccines so that we can get these done. Once AstraZeneca comes out I think the refrigeration issue becomes less of an issue as well so maybe that should help too. I’m not a science person so that part I’m not sure on.
NJ health commissioner announced today that hospitals in NJ have vaccinated nearly 50% of their HCWs. She didn’t say why the rest weren’t vaccinated (yet).