In Philadelphia, a scandal erupts over vaccination startup led by 22-year-old

I think one of the key points is that you can’t tell if a system needs evolutionary (incremental) or revolutionary change unless you analyze it in depth. “It’s not working” as a superficial observation of effect is not good enough - it may be on the cusp of working with a few tweaks, which would be much more efficient than starting over. As with any idea, throwing things out of the window can be good if it’s complemented with a set of clauses (“we’re starting over because of a, b and c”). The concept on its own is likely hubris or misguided based on the false pretense that revolution for the sake of revolution is good.

Add to this a lack of remaining frontiers - Used to be those were somewhere for people to strike out and make a truly new start. Perhaps if/when space becomes a true new frontier that dynamic will return.

Him taking vaccines home to vaccinate his girlfriend should be its own article, discussing exactly what happened. We’ve already seen in a dozen cities what happens if there are thawed vaccines that day: use them.

The rest doesn't seem different enough from whats happening everywhere to really warrant Farley’s PR campaign here to prevent his resignation. Everywhere has bungled scheduling errors or vaccines logistics leaving extra thawed vaccines that need to be used that day irregardless of the order.

I was shocked reading this article but stepping back I just cant get behind this, my pitch fork is put away. I bet the CEO wasn't even wrong about the irrelevant best practice that was cited in this article.

Testing is different than vaccinations. The article doesn't distinguish that well except for “ahh theyre a for-profit company now omg oh noes.” A medical company with no actual contract with the municipality making money? How is that even a footnote. Their insurance reimbursal plan had to pivot who gives a fuck.

Like I said its just not different enough. Figure out what their logistical problems are and fix them. The end.

This honestly reads like Farley’s PR agent trying to prevent his forced resignation. My PR agent would typically make articles not seem to be about me by mentioning me/my organizations deep in the listicle or at the end of the article, and we would put a competitor at the top of the listicle to deflect the idea it was advertising to begin with, and then use the coincidence of being mentioned in the same article together to open a dialogue. We didnt actually care about engagement or the clout of being in a particular publication, it was all backdoor ploys. The commonality here is that the city is “competing” with this organization and confusing everyone, within a week of one logistical issue. This reads like that to me.

This isn't worth our attention.

> I'm not confident hospitals are doing much better in getting people vaccinated.

They're not, Ralph's (SoCal's version of Kroger/Safeway neighborhood grocery stores) just had a lot of their vaccines pulled in LA County [0], which is perhaps the worst place hit by COVID in the US by case-death ratio, and many people who were scheduled for thier vaccine (elderly who are the reason ICUs are at 0% capacity) were just told 'oh well, better luck next time.'

This entire situation is a shit show, and shows why the need to reform it exists.

I agree on the mixed feelings; for all the entrepreneur porn thrown around here and the constant mental masturbation about how 'fail fast and iterate' type strategies are the corner stone of any successful business amongst the HN Silicon Valley crowds you cant have it both ways and wag your finger when things go wrong--they always do in the beginning with growing pains.

I think a lot of these same people that shake their heads and stroke their chins in disapproval from the sidelines equate their situation working for an established FAANG (who were once a startup long before they ever got there) think they know what its like to go into uncharted territory and break ground and actually disrupt something we all know is broken in the US: The Medical Industrial Complex and its affiliate modes of operation.

To be honest, I think the issue was the Philadelphia health department not doing it's due diligence and only giving them a platform without any legally binding contractual oblations and standards (not rules) and benchmarks to operate under and adhere to... like not not taing the vaccine home with you and giving it to your GF! But even having someone from the Heath department at least oversee and have a minor assistant operations role or something would have gone a long way when they gave away a portion of their (incredibly scarce) vaccine in the middle of a f'ing pandemic!

> By January 9th, Doroshin had a deal with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Mayor Jim Kenney's administration. The city never signed a formal contract with Philly Fighting Covid or gave the organization any money, but did provide its unofficial sanction, and publicity. Most importantly, the city turned over part of its vaccine allotment to the group, and helped them find recipients by sharing lists of residents who were newly eligible for the vaccine, based on the city's own prioritization scheme.

Entrepreneurs, but founders in particular, are overly optimistic (borderline delusional at times, and I speak from first hand experience) and are incredibly risk prone people by nature and often take on way more than they can deliver under even ideal conditions, so under a pandemic which you see has a death toll that increases on an hourly/daily basis and represents an affected family(s) and is the reason why a lot of the country has been locked down and suffering a damn near economic depression now for almost a year, its clear to see this is far from ideal conditions so some basic contingencies should have been made.

With that said, I agree, the numbers by comparison to the mass vaccination at Coor's Stadium by UChealth, who only did a 1000 in a weekenm, are not bad because even a small state like CO is struggling to match those numbers and they were the first place to report cases of that 2nd strain and recently opened up it's businesses and schools, thus increasing the need more than anyone else. They're suppoed to do 10,000 this weekend, and with better weather in Denver they might just get it, but it that took a massive coordinated effort and way larger budget, team and infrastructure.

Shoutout to the Philly Fighting Covid team for this undertaking under immense pressure! And a personal thanks for trying to take some pressure off the over worked physicians and nurses who when this is all said and done will have a long road to recovery in physical but specifically mental health.

And while I'm sure people here (and elsewhere) are going to point fingers and judge, just ask yourself: what has been your biggest achievement during this pandemic, especially for those you work remotely from the comfort of your home and doing the supposed 2-3hours of 'actual work a day' a mid tier SWE does in a day.

A sentiment that so many here agreed they do most days all while getting paid obscene salaries.

I'm sure as hell it wasn't as impressive as mass vaccinations under immense pressure. The way some people are viewing this you'd think they were Theranos 2.0, when people are in fact getting the vaccine.

0: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-28/ralphs-c...

PS: I don't care if you downvote me as I don't care about your fake points, but GP raised some valid points and in the time I typed all this out with citations he was dropped to the bottom and downvoted into oblivion with no rebuttal.

That's a really pathetic thing to do at HN in what is supposed to be at its CORE a hub for entrepreneurs to chat and discuss ideas, not obscure people's opinion who you don't agree with.

Even the expensive COVID vaccines are an absolute bargain compared to all the costs associated with not having them (economic, social, health, geopolitical...).

The EU has just created a huge problem for themselves (which will result in extra people dying) by insisting on paying 2 dollars per dose for the AZ vaccine instead of 3 dollars or whatever. If you do the maths on that, it’s hard to find a rational or humane justification for trying to “save money” this way.

Israel by contrast decided to pay double the list price for their vaccines, and half their population is now vaccinated.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-coronavirus-vaccine-s...