Didn’t we have nine months to plan for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine? So why was everyone so surprised and unprepared when millions of vials of the life-saving stuff were delivered on our state’s doorstep? You’ve probably read about hours-long lines of elderly people waiting to get their dose. Frustrating scheduling protocols. Precious vaccines being thrown away at the end of the day partly because health care workers fear they’d get punished for giving them to the wrong person.Reuters reported last week that California had administered less than half the doses it has on hand, putting the state toward the bottom on that basis. West Virginia was at the top. Stop for a moment and let that sink in. When it really, really counts, California – with all its resources and supposed sophistication – was unable to match the performance standards of one of the poorest and smallest states in the nation.It’s been clear for months that states would be in charge of figuring the procedures for distributing the vaccines, but California has been tardy to that party. Here it is Feb. 1 and confusion still abounds.“Almost every practical question I ask anybody, the answer I get is a shrug of the shoulders,” Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times.I keep asking the same question: Shouldn’t this have all been plotted out months ago? Weren’t there regular updates in the news throughout the fall about how the vaccines were going through a speedy approval process and would be delivered starting in December? I mean, apparently some adult in West Virginia must’ve said something like, “Hey, y’all, let’s make a plan for distributing the vaccines. They’ll be here in a few months.”What’s particularly aggravating is that our local governments in recent weeks were more preoccupied with hassling operating businesses than they were with delivering life-saving vaccines. Los Angeles keeps threatening to shut off power and water to operating businesses. The city of Burbank in early January notified a western-themed bar that its permit to operate could be revoked because it had the audacity to serve customers. And Ventura County on Jan. 8 sued five gyms and one restaurant and threatened to sue 10 more businesses for continuing to operate, although they’re operating on a limited basis.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would have thought Burbank and Ventura County and all the other local governments would have ignored businesses while they directed every available employee to help figure how to quickly distribute and administer vaccines so people could, you know, be saved.It would be different if you could make an argument that closing businesses had a salutary effect on slowing the spread of the coronavirus. By now, we have learned that’s not true at all or at least not true enough to make a difference. States and countries whose businesses remained largely open haven’t fared significantly better or worse than those that shut them down. Case in point: California. It has seen a huge spike in COVID cases despite having one of the strictest lockdowns.
As you probably know, some folks contend that closing businesses is making the virus spread faster. Because people can’t meet in restaurants and other places, where protocols are followed, they meet in homes, where they generally aren’t.
Guess who said this: “In many ways, you can understand what happened. You close bars, you close restaurants, you close theaters, you close stadiums, you close mass gatherings. Where do people go? They go home.”The answer: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. He said that in explaining why 74 percent of the new COVID cases originated in household gatherings. Only 1.43 percent came from restaurants and bars. (At the same press conference in December when Cuomo provided those numbers, he shut down indoor dining. And no, I can’t explain the logic.) Again, those numbers: 74 percent of new COVID cases from household gatherings and 1.43 percent from restaurants and bars. I know that’s New York and not Los Angeles, but still.Maybe I’m a naïve idealist, but I would have thought someone in California’s many government circles would have something like, “You know, closing businesses isn’t working. Let’s stop harassing them. Instead, let’s use our energies to do what we can to help deliver life-saving vaccines.”
Dude, Where’s My Vaccine Shot?
