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The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

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Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#141

Post by valarauko »

Grustaf wrote: post #111
ceejayoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Throwing them away and giving them to friends and family aren't the only two options. With a six hour window, it's unlikely he's gonna be able to invent a fair queuing system on his own, and get applicants to it. The article indicates he tried first with EMS, police, etc. at the vaccination location. There should be state-wide efforts at this; a "we might call you at 2am to ask you if you can be to the hospital by…

> Around 6:45 at night, as the event wound down, an eligible person arrived for a shot. A nurse punctured a new vial to administer the vaccine, which activated the six-hour time limit for the 10 remaining doses. Why would the nurse open a new vial when they know they are about to close? That is very reckless, considering that vaccination is not time critical. That person could just come back tomorrow.

I'm not sure what's the situation in Tx. especially in December, but here in NY getting an appointment is the limiting factor. Even as of today, there are no appointments available for eligible recipients till mid April. An appointment only gets you through the door, and if you can't make it you have to get a fresh appointment through the state website. The vaccination site itself cannot reschedule your appointment for the next day - it can only book a follow up for the second dose weeks later.

Source: I work at a medical school, and was told this by the doctor managing the vaccination line. He walks up and down the line, counting the number of people who showed up and opens the vials accordingly, but he's not in a position to ask anybody to come the next day. At least with Moderna, it's 10 doses per vial. Even though my employer had sufficient vaccine supply for us, our hospital was overrun with COVID cases in early January and medical staff to actually perform the vaccination was in short supply. The senior medical students were recruited to help out, and even then it would take many weeks to cover our staff. I actually got vaccinated at a different site 30 miles away, but I doubt this is an option available to most people. If you miss your appointment you're screwed.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#142

Post by da_big_ghey »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #131
BeefySwain wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really telling part to me is that (seemingly) no one from any of the organizations involved (the hospital and the prosecutors office) will come forward and outright say that what was done was immoral. They are all hiding behind a veneer of "what he did broke the rules and my job is to enforce them", which is about the weakest argument one can make in defense this sort of thing.

The DA who brought the case, Kim Ogg, is an elected official. Top Google result for her name is this campaign page: https://www.kim-ogg.com/ . Further down the list is a news article about threatening employees with performance reviews to appear at a food drive for her political benefit. Had the judge not thrown out this case, she'd have another feather in her cap, another headline for the website: "Kim Ogg puts nepo…

I am a Houstonian and absolutely hate Ogg. She bills herself as the "most progressive DA" and therefore prosecutes/does not prosecute certain things based on their political appearance. That is not what a DA should be doing, and she is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the "progressive" left these days.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#143

Post by mumblemumble »

grayhatter wrote: post #118
lotsofpulp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Covering your ass isn’t a weak defense for the underlings. There exists a leader(s) somewhere that made the rules and that can change the rules. They are the only ones responsible, and I don’t see why anyone else should stick their neck out and risk their income for it. It’s actually a strategy for leaders to want the underlings to stick their neck out, so that they can be sacrificed as a scapegoat when convenient. (…

Where does the moral line lie then? what's difference that makes 'just following orders' suddenly not apply? In this specific case; where's the prosecutorial discretion? If it's coming down from on high, why aren't their names in this article?

> Where does the moral line lie then?

I don't know that that's a useful question in this context. Bureaucracies function in intensely amoral ways. Even ones with a moral mission. You can embarrass the leadership with moral judgments, and that will steer things for at least as long as public scrutiny maintains its attention span. Internally, though, the rules look more like game theory, and the bureaucracy will naturally tend to reject anyone who doesn't want to play the game.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#144

Post by clairity »

mumblemumble wrote: post #103
happytoexplain wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the root of a lot of problems. We spend far too much energy making sure "bad people" get what they "deserve" and don't get what they "don't deserve", and put in too little of that same energy in the case of "all people".

This is a huge part of why, perhaps surprisingly, libertarian think tanks in the US have started pushing for universal basic income. The sheer weight of the bureaucracy that has accumulated due to this way of thinking means that replacing it with a straight-up program of unflinching wealth redistribution would actually make the government smaller . And also make markets freer. The amount of rent-seeking behavior arou…

this is an ideological argument devoid of meaningful goals to help residents and create a strong economy.

who cares, on the face of it, what size the government is? size is not the goal, it's at best a poor proxy metric for (in-)efficiency, which itself is a proxy metric for how much we help people via public goods (and thereby the whole economy).

rent-seeking around wic is a rounding error next to property & capital rent-seeking overall. moreover, the right place to place blame (and seek redress) is with the rent-seekers themselves, not the assistance recipients (or the associated governmental programs) being exploited by them.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#145

Post by ivanbakel »

aardvarkr wrote: post #121
ivanbakel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're literally saying he should have just thrown them away instead of distributing them as best he was able. I wouldn't necessarily object to that particular policy. It's a shame to waste perfectly good medicine in a pandemic, but would we feel the same if he had not found anybody vulnerable who was available, and instead ended up vaccinating his own children, who are fit and healthy? What if, instead, he taken…

So your problem is that it’s not fair how he distributed it? You’d rather see life saving medicine trashed rather than go into a human being’s arm? How can you defend that position? It’s so unethical.

>So your problem is that it’s not fair how he distributed it?

No, the point I'm making is that his actions were outside of the system we use as a society to ensure fairness. He could still have distributed the vaccine fairly - but he also could have done it unfairly. The concern comes from the lack of due process.

>You’d rather see life saving medicine trashed rather than go into a human being’s arm? How can you defend that position?

This is a strawman, so thankfully I don't have to defend it.

Ultimately, the point is more this one: if you view this with a utilitarian mindset, then you may feel that the ends justified the doctor's means. But the rule of law is deontological, not utilitarian - both because it simplifies decision-making in the justice system, and because it protects people from utilitarian injustice. And from that perspective, the doctor acted unjustly in bypassing policy, even if the outcome was good - and that's what the prosecutor is concerned with.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#146

Post by 16bytes »

kuu wrote: post #18

In Spain we had many cases of politicians and public people using this excuse to get vaccinated before the rest (even bishops used it, and not only one!). I think it would be an easy to fix thing: Have a list of extra people available if you end up with an extra dose. It shouldn't be that hard, we had a year for preparing for this...

The point is that logistics are hard. Even if you have an "extras" list, there will be odd circumstances where you're forced to pivot.

> we had a year for preparing for this...

I hear this argument a lot. Health officials have been overworked just trying to stay on top of the pandemic.

They aren't experts in logistics. The only way to have been more prepared is already have a plan pre-pandemic. Once you're in the middle, it's chaos.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#147

Post by mumblemumble »

clairity wrote: post #144
mumblemumble wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge part of why, perhaps surprisingly, libertarian think tanks in the US have started pushing for universal basic income. The sheer weight of the bureaucracy that has accumulated due to this way of thinking means that replacing it with a straight-up program of unflinching wealth redistribution would actually make the government smaller . And also make markets freer. The amount of rent-seeking behavior arou…

this is an ideological argument devoid of meaningful goals to help residents and create a strong economy. who cares, on the face of it, what size the government is? size is not the goal, it's at best a poor proxy metric for (in-)efficiency, which itself is a proxy metric for how much we help people via public goods (and thereby the whole economy). rent-seeking around wic is a rounding error next to property & capital…

I'm not sure I see why killing the engine that fuels the rent-seeking gravy train, and, in the process of doing so, taking a huge monkey off the backs of people who are receiving assistance, would somehow misplace blame on those same people. It's simply suggesting that perhaps we should address a cause of the problem rather than only focusing on its symptoms. And the way in which the market gets freer, in this case, is by taking away unnecessary and paternalistic restrictions that WIC imposes on where recipients shop and what they're allowed to buy.

Perhaps framing things in classical liberal terms feels like de-centering assistance recipients. I get that, but I'm not sure that's actually a bad thing, in this case. I can't imagine your average WIC participant actually wants to live under a microscope, regardless of the political leanings of the person who's looking through it.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#148

Post by kiba »

abfan1127 wrote: post #108
kiba wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chance are, the dedicated/motivated students likely have a far more supportive environment than the kids on the bottom. Increasing resources and support to the top kids will surely increase inequality, while also improving the top's capabilities. Meanwhile, the kids at the bottom get left behind.

its important to say that the vast majority of kids at the bottom get left behind because of the parents. Parents that aren't involved, don't review homework, don't instill good study habits, set their kids up for failure. There are plenty of reasons why parents don't get involved. Those reasons range from working too much, to they don't give a shit.

All I am pointing out that gifted kids likely have supportive environment that nurtured their growth, even if it's just parents that can throw money at problems. What happens if you throw societal support at them? They will likely do even better.

They will be better educated, have more economic opportunities, more financial support from society, and be more well connected.

Meritocratic programs exacerbate inequality and grow the divide between the kids at the top and those at the bottom.

Maybe we shouldn't stop doing them, but we need to think about supporting the bottom, such as free lunch, without exception.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#150

Post by ironmagma »

ip26 wrote: post #105
nathancahill wrote: post #3

Spent a long time reading about how vast bureaucratic inefficiencies are created by people worrying that "the wrong person" will benefit from government programs or that someone "undeserving" might get theirs before I do. This falls squarely in that bucket. Tragic.

It's not just selfishness, I think we've run into something fundamentally unintuitive for people's lower brain. For much of human history, shutting out cheats & freeloaders was an important part of making good use of a resource. These days, we have hit a point where the bureaucratic overhead of shutting them out can become more expensive than just letting them in. That's not intuitive for people.

The problem with this take is that it’s more useful than just to preserve a resource. By allowing people to get away with fraud you are encouraging people to do it again, including ways that transcend whatever system that fraud was originally within. I don’t actually know that chasing pranksters has ever been an efficient use of time, but someone should chase them if we expect the boundaries of normal operation to be known as a society.
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