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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

#331

Post by kxyvr »

civilized wrote: post #323
kxyvr wrote: post #153

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 vaccin…

> I believe it's a false dichotomy to assert that either he takes the vaccine home or it goes to waste I don't see a specific, viable, knowable-at-the-time alternative course of action Dr. Gokal could have taken, from you or anyone else. And the events in question happened over a month ago. Dr. Gokal's boss has had over a month to BS about what Dr. Gokal should have done, and failed to come up with anything. Dr. Goka…

Well, here's one option. Between Humble and Kingwood there are about half a dozen freestanding ERs in addition to a hospital ER at one of the Hermann branches. They would have been within 5-10 minutes of the vaccine's original location.

While freestanding ERs have a number of issues, there is a single attending on staff that is extremely easy to get hold of by another physician. He could have called at least one of them to see if there were eligible patients in the facility that would accept the vaccine. Yes, this takes time, but note that depending on traffic it takes about an hour to drive back to Sugar Land. I believe that if he would have dispersed the vaccines at one of those facilities, the story and perception of this physician would have been dramatically different.

My point in bringing this up is that there were other realistic options that he could have taken. It is not quite as simple as take the vaccine home or it goes to waste.

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

#332

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

nickff wrote: post #327
pmiller2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically, you just don't like what you think people would do with their time, if given the chance because they're not chained to a job? Sorry if this sounds overly confrontational, but I couldn't think of a more civil way to say it.

I was specifically responding to a comment which said: > "Living in Finland I met a man who was perpetually on the dole, but he was an extremely active Wikipedia editor, for example. I have often thought if that basic income existed, I could finally do some of the huge OpenStreetMap expeditions I had in mind (adding house numbers for the entire surrounding region, for example.)" It is my opinion that those are exampl…

Wikipedia and OSM are generally seen as major human achievements because they bring a huge amount of generally reliable data to the whole world on a libre basis, and you call them vanity projects?

For them to be vanity, one's work would have to actually be deeply associated with one's identity so that one could look good in the eyes of others. In fact, 99.9% of people using that data will not know or care who originally contributed it, and editing these resources is about as thankless a task as can be.

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

#333

Post by pmiller2 »

nickff wrote: post #327
pmiller2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, basically, you just don't like what you think people would do with their time, if given the chance because they're not chained to a job? Sorry if this sounds overly confrontational, but I couldn't think of a more civil way to say it.

I was specifically responding to a comment which said: > "Living in Finland I met a man who was perpetually on the dole, but he was an extremely active Wikipedia editor, for example. I have often thought if that basic income existed, I could finally do some of the huge OpenStreetMap expeditions I had in mind (adding house numbers for the entire surrounding region, for example.)" It is my opinion that those are exampl…

Right, but, apparently editing Wikipedia and improving OSM aren't things you approve of someone receiving UBI doing. I'm guessing there are other things people would be enabled to do by UBI that you wouldn't approve of as well.

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

#334

Post by topspin »

defen wrote: post #330
topspin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correcting historical equity disparities such as unfair distribution of medicines is one example of the steps necessary to achieve a just world. Note that placing the term equity in quotes as you have done can be seen as implying some qualification of the concept, as though it is in doubt or not legitimate. I'd ask that you please avoid this in the future.

Usually equity is considered a good thing, but you are literally saying the equitable thing is for more people to die. Hence the airquotes.

> but you

I?

It is not I that insists on unused vaccine being allowed to expire for the sake of adherence to policy. I merely defend the prevailing policies that work to deliver equity. The values we have collectively adopted weigh equity as more important than lives. Not only in theory in some forum on the internet, but in actual practice.

As is only just. No?

Perhaps the good doctor will think harder about exactly to whom he is bestowing the benefits of his efforts in the future. There is an awful lot of injustice that has to be made good and we must all do our part, especially professionals such as doctors, who should be well equipped to make the correct distinctions and prioritize these factors in every facet of their profession.

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

#335

Post by omg_ponies »

rayiner wrote: post #295
floatingatoll wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think that given what we’ve done here in the US to the past forty years of workers, they’ve earned a decade off to live on UBI and heal from burnout and develop interests of any sort in anything at all again, before we could even begin to productively analyze their reactions to UBI. They’ve been traumatized and it will take time to heal and I certainly hope that we implement UBI and let them do so. We can aff…

But people mostly don’t do stuff like actively edit Wikipedia. I’m a big fan of having a robust social welfare system, but we need to acknowledge realities that maybe we don’t prefer to acknowledge. Many people on welfare are idle don’t do anything meaningful with their time. The response to that isn’t necessarily to cut welfare. It could mean taking a bigger picture look at society to see how changes have affected p…

> Many people on welfare are idle don’t do anything meaningful with their time.

Do you have a citation for this claim? My understanding is that enormous numbers of welfare recipients are elderly, frail, or have chronic medical issues.

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

#336

Post by civilized »

kxyvr wrote: post #331
civilized wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe it's a false dichotomy to assert that either he takes the vaccine home or it goes to waste I don't see a specific, viable, knowable-at-the-time alternative course of action Dr. Gokal could have taken, from you or anyone else. And the events in question happened over a month ago. Dr. Gokal's boss has had over a month to BS about what Dr. Gokal should have done, and failed to come up with anything. Dr. Goka…

Well, here's one option. Between Humble and Kingwood there are about half a dozen freestanding ERs in addition to a hospital ER at one of the Hermann branches. They would have been within 5-10 minutes of the vaccine's original location. While freestanding ERs have a number of issues, there is a single attending on staff that is extremely easy to get hold of by another physician. He could have called at least one of t…

Interesting post, better than most making this side of the argument.

Do we know if those ERs would administer vaccines from another hospital's punctured vial in their facilities? Do we know how long it would take to get the answer to that question, trimming off the 42 minutes per person Dr. Gokal had to find, administer, and properly document the vaccine injection? And at the end of all that, would there be enough high-priority individuals on hand, ready and willing to be vaccinated? Was that clearly better than calling up people the doctor knew, and knew to be vulnerable?

Yeah, I don't think you know any of that. It's fine to speculate about the hypothetical optimal course of action in this situation, but it's deeply wrong to judge Dr. Gokal without certain knowledge of all those things.

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

#337

Post by nickff »

pmiller2 wrote: post #333
nickff wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was specifically responding to a comment which said: > "Living in Finland I met a man who was perpetually on the dole, but he was an extremely active Wikipedia editor, for example. I have often thought if that basic income existed, I could finally do some of the huge OpenStreetMap expeditions I had in mind (adding house numbers for the entire surrounding region, for example.)" It is my opinion that those are exampl…

Right, but, apparently editing Wikipedia and improving OSM aren't things you approve of someone receiving UBI doing. I'm guessing there are other things people would be enabled to do by UBI that you wouldn't approve of as well.

I'm fine with people editing Wikipedia and contributing to OSM as much as they'd like, but I think each activity is more focused on the 'contributor' than the audience, and I'd rather not subsidize it. I believe that Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and many other crowdsourcing projects have succeeded precisely because they harness vanity, for laudable objectives. That said, most of the 'contributors' are contributing precious little.

Work-for-pay tends to be more beneficial to others than 'creative expression'-type activities such as writing, painting, or composing music. The vast majority of what people create is worthless to others, whereas much of what people do 'for work' is actually useful to others.

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

#338

Post by [deleted] »

username90 wrote: post #303
clairity wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ubi would not change the dynamics. the same trivial rent-seeking would happen, but it’s still irrelevant if what you really care about is rent-seeking as economic drag/inefficiency, not ideological concerns.

UBI gives people control over their own money. Food stamps for example gives poor people a disproportionally large food budget which studies has shown makes them fat. People who are equally poor but aren't on food stamps are healthier than those who get it, even though their purchasing power increased. So only reason to give them food stamps instead of just giving them money is to feed money into grocery stores and t…

[deleted]

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

#339

Post by kxyvr »

civilized wrote: post #336
kxyvr wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, here's one option. Between Humble and Kingwood there are about half a dozen freestanding ERs in addition to a hospital ER at one of the Hermann branches. They would have been within 5-10 minutes of the vaccine's original location. While freestanding ERs have a number of issues, there is a single attending on staff that is extremely easy to get hold of by another physician. He could have called at least one of t…

Interesting post, better than most making this side of the argument. Do we know if those ERs would administer vaccines from another hospital's punctured vial in their facilities? Do we know how long it would take to get the answer to that question, trimming off the 42 minutes per person Dr. Gokal had to find, administer, and properly document the vaccine injection? And at the end of all that, would there be enough hi…

I very much agree that we don't have all of the information here and that it's very easy to Monday morning quarterback a decision that was made under pressure without good guidance. Sadly, it's possible that this whole situation will turn into a trap where there all available options have some kind of negative outcome. That said, I don't think that it's entirely inappropriate to discuss or postulate other courses of action because it's something that can help other people in the same situation.

With respect to the freestanding ERs, I would contend that they would probably take it. A friend of mine owns a couple in Houston. My wife used to work off and on with a different company at them as the attending physician. That does not make me an expert in this area, but I can say with absolute confidence that getting hold of the physician on duty quickly with this kind of matter is guaranteed. Whether they would want the liability to give the vaccines is unknown to me. The next time I see my friend, I'll ask him because I'm genuinely curious.

I'll also mention that there are certain cultural biases that come into play here as well. I spent years doing federal contract work and it was well ingrained into me that avoiding the appearance of impropriety is important for a well functioning organization. As much as the organizations that I worked with don't want waste, the bias is to side with clean, unreproachable conduct even if this is more wasteful. Not all of the government works this way and the reality of life is that this isn't always so easy. I mention this because that kind of bias suggests a different way of looking at the problem and provides a different set of solutions. That's not a value judgement to say that these solutions are better or worse, but an implicit assumption that there has to be a different way.

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

#340

Post by pmiller2 »

nickff wrote: post #337
pmiller2 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but, apparently editing Wikipedia and improving OSM aren't things you approve of someone receiving UBI doing. I'm guessing there are other things people would be enabled to do by UBI that you wouldn't approve of as well.

I'm fine with people editing Wikipedia and contributing to OSM as much as they'd like, but I think each activity is more focused on the 'contributor' than the audience, and I'd rather not subsidize it. I believe that Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and many other crowdsourcing projects have succeeded precisely because they harness vanity, for laudable objectives. That said, most of the 'contributors' are contributing prec…

What makes you think that remunerative work is inherently valuable to anyone other than the person paying for that work? You, like I do, probably work largely in order to line the pockets of some already rich CEO. That doesn't mean what either of us does for a living is socially valuable. This seems more like vanity to me than editing Wikipedia or improving OSM.
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