Med City News comments on the colossal mess we are seeing in the distribution of the vaccine. They note:
Instead, Operation Warp Speed allocated initial doses to the states, depending on population. From there, an inscrutable mix of state officials, public health agencies and lobbyists seem to be determining where the vaccine should go. In some states, counties requested an allotment from the state, and then they tried to accommodate requests from hospitals, which made their individual algorithms for how to dole out the precious cargo. Once it became clear there wasn’t enough vaccine to go around, each entity made its own adjustments. Some doses are being shipped by FedEx or UPS. But Pfizer — which did not fully participate in Operation Warp Speed — is shipping much of the vaccine itself. In nursing homes, some vaccines will be delivered and administered by employees of CVS and Walgreens, though issues of staffing and consent remain there. The Moderna vaccine, rolling out this week, will be packaged by the “pharmaceutical services provider” Catalent in Bloomington, Indiana, and then sent to McKesson, a large pharmaceutical logistics and distribution outfit. It has offices in places like Memphis, Tennessee, and Louisville, which are near air hubs for FedEx and UPS, which will ship them out. Is your head spinning yet?
No my head has not stopped spinning. Worse yet the NY Times reports:
“I am so disappointed and saddened that this happened,” a New York hospital executive wrote to his staff after workers who did not have priority cut the line for the vaccine. At NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, one of the most highly regarded hospitals in New York City, a rumor spread last week that the line for the coronavirus vaccine on the ninth floor was unguarded and anyone could stealthily join and receive the shot. Under the rules, the most exposed health care employees were supposed to go first, but soon those from lower-risk departments, including a few who spent much of the pandemic working from home, were getting vaccinated.
Indeed we have a major problem. Months ago I said we needed a General Groves. Instead we got a General "I'm sorry". Grove was in charge of everything, down to the B29 tires, crew, shipping, etc. Not just the science. Anyone who has the slightest clue on how to do something like this would never have left it up to the states. They are grossly incompetent. I suspect that the New Jersey batch is still behind the Lost Ark at the airport in Newark. I also suspect that between the lobbyists and political friends, the proposed CDC plan is total fiction.
When the books on this incompetent set of actions is written a decade from now, the worst actors will be the State players. The second worse will be General "what's his name".
To paraphrase a politician: "I knew General Groves Sir, and you are no General Groves".
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