Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nyti.ms

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 369 posts

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

#151

Post by treis »

crispyambulance wrote: post #139
treis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe? With ID, sure. Besides, he's been the medical director of the Covid response for the county since April. His job was to put procedures to handle situations like this in place.

Do you know what the ID of "the medical director of Covid response since April" looks like? I don't and neither do you or the firemen/police he would approach.

It took me 20 seconds of googling to find a picture of the medical director for my county.

But that's not really the point. The point is that part of his job was to come up with a plan for these situations. And he settled on give them to my friends and family. That's obviously a poor choice fraught with ethical issues. Like I said, arresting him is not the answer but he is not innocent.

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

#153

Post by kxyvr »

For reference for non-Houston readers, he took the vaccine from a vaccine event in Humble to his home in Sugar Land. That's over 40 miles through the fourth largest city in America. His route home would have had him drive by the Texas Medical Center, which contains 21 hospitals that employs over 100k people. Further, the city/county run vaccine effort has been very strict about verifying addresses. He took the vaccine across county lines.

As much as I strongly believe that rigid rules hurt good people, I believe it's a false dichotomy to assert that either he takes the vaccine home or it goes to waste. Further, it is important to maintain some semblance of public trust during this process and the optics of driving across one of the largest cities in America, by one of the largest medical centers in the country, and taking the vaccine home to find eligible people is not good. Now, yes, it's not quite as easy as calling up a hospital as asking if they could use it, but it doesn't sound like he tried.

Now, even if we believe he did the right thing, I'll still stress that there will always be a contention between optics, trust, and corruption. Say I work as the mayor of a city and my brother really is the best contractor for the job, do I hire him? I'll contend that's not exactly an easy question and neither is the case with this physician and the vaccine.

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

#154

Post by colechristensen »

dkural wrote: post #126
colechristensen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I likewise know someone who intentionally makes as little money as possible in order to take advantage of state support program. Or to be more accurate, makes as much money as possible under the various limits for benefits while living in a comfortable (essentially inherited) situation. This is a person with high education, without any major disability or impediment to working, they just choose not to work because th…

Do you care to substantiate your anecdote?

I would not. Nobody asked me to substantiate my story about the homeless program.

And I could point to social media posts admitting to this strategy to take advantage of these support programs, but I wouldn’t.

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

#155

Post by h_anna_h »

treis wrote: post #57
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind? The article mentions that he tried vaccinating everyone in the clinic and called the county to ask; I'm legitimately unsure what else he could have done to find people.

>Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind Go to the nearest grocery store/ Firehouse / police station and give them to front line workers.

If I saw someone in the grocery store claiming to have a covid vaccine and asking people if they want to be vaccinated I would probably call the police.

This feels like backseat driving/gaming.

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

#156

Post by abfan1127 »

kiba wrote: post #148
abfan1127 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Based on my experiences, many "bottom parents" don't want support, or they've delegated the job of "education" to teachers. Getting parents to care matters.

Free lunch doesn't do that. full bellies learn better, but if mom/dad have a "who cares" attitude, that is very likely to flow down to kids.

I also acknowledge the challenge of getting people to care. Its no easy feat.

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

#157

Post by whoisburbansky »

endisneigh wrote: post #36
treis wrote: post #32

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 don't understand why people make arguments like this. Throwing them away and giving them to friends and family aren't the only two options. There's a whole swath of acceptable and achievable options. Giving doses to friends and family is a pretty bright ethical line. I don't think arresting him is the rig…

I don’t understand this take - it’s not like his friends and family were the first ones he offered the vaccine to.

The article says “acquaintances and strangers,” and his wife. If he was trying to prioritize family and friends you’d think he’d give it to his elderly dad right off the bat.

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

#159

Post by SamBam »

galangalalgol wrote: post #66
SamBam wrote: post #12

The same thing has been happening across the country. This is basically states failing to create a proper portal that can provide a vaccine-provider a list of the next n prioritized people in the city, and then blaming the doctors when they don't have arms to inject. This is a failure of management from the very top, and people lower down getting the blame. It is simply insane to me that most (all?) states haven't us…

Is hippa partly at fault? I wonder how much of our healthcare cost is related to hippa. The only time I have had to use a fax in the last decade is to get my medical records to a new doctor.

I don't see why it ought to be. That's why I was specifying a non-medical-records-transferring site.

Already when you book an appointment, I believe, you simply state why you're eligible for the current group and when you get to the injection site they double-check that (to the best of their ability). I don't believe that any states are requiring verification that you are, e.g., a smoker.

So you should be able to just input your data, your age, if you are a frontline worker, whatever, and check the box that you have 2+ of the listed medical conditions. When you get to the site, the triage person can check that.

This is no more or less security than currently exists, it just centralizes it.

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

#160

Post by chadash »

mchusma wrote: post #79
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.

This is why I generally support universal basic income if it could replace the US safety net. Currently we spend more than it would take to eliminate poverty if we just gave it away. But the beauracratic machine just destroys so much wealth.

Do you have numbers? How much do we spend eliminating poverty? And how much would we spend on universal income? Assuming 200 million adults get universal income, that would cost $1 trillion per $5,000 of income. But $5000 hardly gets you out of poverty.
Post reply on HN