Stanford apologizes after vaccine allocation leaves out medical residents

The federal government has allocated to states, and pretty much left it up to the states how to allocate internally. With some vague sort of guidelines.

Most states seem to be deciding to prioritize healthcare workers (especially those taking care of covid patients) either entirely or among other groups. So the way you do that is delivering to hospitals makes sense. CA presumably allocated a certain amount to Stanford Medicine, as a large hospital system. I don't know how CA decided what hospitals to give to in what amounts, but it certainly wouldn't shock me if political influence were part of it, why wouldn't it be, what sort of guidelines or transparency is there to stop it? There is not really any written procedure for how to decide which hospitals to get how much in most states, it's just... happening.

Then Stanford was clearly left entirely on their own to decide how to allocate internally.

This is far too important and too politically fraught (political in terms of POWER, in terms of distributing a resource for which demand far exceeds supply for something that can literally be life-and-death) -- to have left it up for everyone to just make up their own prioritization rules and medical ethics determinations on the fly, in a hetereogenous way. It means people will make terrible mistakes, and the powerful will take advantage to have their needs prioritized.

It is ridiculous there aren't much more clear/specific guidelines, and in some cases enforceable policies/regulations, from the federal government. It's like nobody's driving the bus here

> I can name 3 other local hospital systems in my city that have vaccinated administrative & C-suite/VP level staff

I don't understand why society is putting up with this. Right now if you're not in a daily COVID-facing role (i.e. an actual front line medical worker) or in a nursing home you should not be getting the shot. This makes my blood boil. There should have been laws passed regarding ordering of the distribution with criminal penalties for line jumpers like this.

There's an article in our local paper with a happy picture of one of our state's congressional representatives (a healthy 34-year-old!) getting the shot. Like WTF? There's doctors and nurses who are treating covid patients who can't get it yet. Why the heck does Congress get priority over them?

Not only do these people have no shame, half of them even have the nerve to brag about it to the rest of us plebes who will have to wait months or more to get it.

Gross oversight: Veterinarians are not in the first wave of vaccinations, despite being both essential and healthcare workers. The mega corps that own most Vet clinics don't care about them, they have continued operating apace. Meanwhile, corona could be all over the dogs and cats brought in, very few owners sanitize their indoor pets before Vet visits.

I think most people are misunderstanding the likely root cause.

> An algorithm was used to assign its first allotment of the vaccine. The algorithm prioritized health care workers at highest risk for COVID infections, along with factors like age and the location or unit where they work in the hospital. Residents did not have an assigned location, and along with their typically young age, they were dropped low on the priority list.

Whoever coded up the algorithm for personal COVID-risk probably forgot to take care of null-states for the location input. Residents had their location set to null, and were therefore prioritized lower than they should've been.

It's possible that the admins purposefully created this null-state bug so as to have a reasonable fallback story in the case they got caught, but per Occam's Razor, I think it's much more likely it was a dumb, honest mistake.

Washington University in St. Louis is currently under fire for the exact same "oversight."