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Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

theatlantic.com

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Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#61

Post by ahelwer »

ipsocannibal wrote: post #54
ahelwer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option one: Pay people to stay home, deliver them supplies & food, call them daily for medical checkup. Three weeks later everyone is free. If community spread is ever detected again, perform a similar citywide lockdown and test everyone (in a city of tens of millions of people) three times. The bureaucrat responsible for overseeing that city is fired. Option two: A year+ of half-assed rolling lockdowns with ever-rec…

Option one sounds great theoretically. Which counties have successfully implemented those policies?

China and Vietnam. Taiwan to a lesser extent.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#62

Post by ahelwer »

ipsocannibal wrote: post #59
ahelwer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option one is China's & Vietnam's strategy for combating the virus, which has been extremely effective. Parts of it were also implemented in nearby non-communist countries such as Taiwan.

The countries where its generally accepted that the government has dictatorial power to imprison at will used its imprisoning prowess to beat a virus and lauded it as a model to be replicated. Good to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in...

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#63

Post by SllX »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57
SllX wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is the entire process is over-bureaucratized. If you want to prioritize anyone, with COVID specifically you come to two conclusions about who you might want to prioritize first: the very old and any employee involved in front-line healthcare work. For the former, there’s a Federally administered healthcare system specifically for anyone 65+. For the latter: they work within, are affiliated with, or have rela…

I understand your point, but the strategy you're describing is exactly what the author is frustrated by. Maryland doesn't have "stupid rules about who is allowed to get an appointment", and all doses which become available are quickly claimed - as a consequence, if she wants to claim a dose for her parents, she has to run around at odd hours checking with everyone who might have new availability. Until we have enough…

Her problem is a good problem to have. Mine is not.

That means people in Maryland are readily receiving the vaccine and between whoever has already been infected, those who are likely to survive infection with little consequence and the daily increase of people who are now vaccinated, the entire State of Maryland is becoming more resistant by the day which will do as much to mitigate risk to her parents as everything else.

A 95% effectiveness rate still means that every 5 out of a hundred vaccinated people will still be vulnerable to infection post-vaccination. Either one of her parents could be one of those 5.

Given we have now reached the point that society will refuse to open up properly until we have vaccinated tons of people, let’s get people vaccinated, lots of them and quickly.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#64

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

dehrmann wrote: post #56
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard for people to calm down when some scientific advisers to governments are telling newspapers that social distancing must last until the entire world is vaccinated, to prevent new COVID mutations, so they recommend the status quo until 2024–2026. Also, governments have handed virtually all authority over lifting lockdown to their health ministers, who generally prioritize saving every possible life above all…

> governments have handed virtually all authority over lifting lockdown to their health ministers This does worry me, but in Europe and the US, the consensus seems to be that it's not possible to stop it, so settle on some sort of a "live with it" strategy. During the fall, I remember Europeans looking at the US and saying "they just needed a real lockdown." As winter came and case counts rose again in Europe, there…

You are right there wasn't much appetite for the hardest degree of lockdowns, but what Europe got instead is bad enough. Borders closed in spite of Schengen, putting a stop to things like cross-border relationships and the sort of everyday interaction between European peoples that staves off nationalisms. Then you have closure of restaurants, concert halls, etc. which has led to a wave of bankrupcies, and governments show little interest in compensating these sectors adequately for their lost business.

When politicians saw that they could get away with hard borders again and closed businesses without too much popular protest (and that is, to a large degree, due to popular protests being banned), I worry that these restrictions could last much longer than just this summer. After all, as I mentioned in my post above, when the scientific advisers to your country’s government are interviewed in the news and recommend restrictions in perpetuity, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#65

Post by ipsocannibal »

ahelwer wrote: post #21
tinus_hn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately option one is the fantasy solution that doesn’t actually work. It has been tried. It doesn’t work.

Option one is China's & Vietnam's strategy for combating the virus, which has been extremely effective. Parts of it were also implemented in nearby non-communist countries such as Taiwan.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-treatment-of-muslim-uighu...

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#66

Post by ipsocannibal »

ahelwer wrote: post #21
tinus_hn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately option one is the fantasy solution that doesn’t actually work. It has been tried. It doesn’t work.

Option one is China's & Vietnam's strategy for combating the virus, which has been extremely effective. Parts of it were also implemented in nearby non-communist countries such as Taiwan.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/vietn...

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#67

Post by votepaunchy »

SllX wrote: post #48
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kinda proving the point here. The source article is about exactly the opposite problem: Maryland is widely distributing vaccines rather than micromanaging fairness, so there are a lot of random tricks available for people to get vaccines faster, and the author is frustrated about that. When there's no perfect strategy available, we can and should push for continual improvement, but there's a point where we hav…

My point is the entire process is over-bureaucratized. If you want to prioritize anyone, with COVID specifically you come to two conclusions about who you might want to prioritize first: the very old and any employee involved in front-line healthcare work. For the former, there’s a Federally administered healthcare system specifically for anyone 65+. For the latter: they work within, are affiliated with, or have rela…

> Manufacturing is not the bottleneck at this point.

This is just nonsense. We are manufacturing quickly, but vaccine production absolutely remains the bottleneck. We will not have sufficient doses for everyone who wants a shot for several months.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#68

Post by ipsocannibal »

ahelwer wrote: post #61
ipsocannibal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option one sounds great theoretically. Which counties have successfully implemented those policies?

China and Vietnam. Taiwan to a lesser extent.

You mean two countries with the some of the worst human rights records, China is literally committing genocide as we speak, used the power to imprison to beat back a virus. Seems like a hammer looking for a nail or a broken clock is right twice a day type situation.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#69

Post by ipsocannibal »

ahelwer wrote: post #62
ipsocannibal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The countries where its generally accepted that the government has dictatorial power to imprison at will used its imprisoning prowess to beat a virus and lauded it as a model to be replicated. Good to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in...

And yet the US doesn't view more prison as the solution to the problem. Granted the Chinese model works but what do you have to lose to achieve it? How about we ask the residents of Hong Kong? They must be super-excited to have the superior Chinese model thrust upon them just in the nick of time.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#70

Post by ahelwer »

ipsocannibal wrote: post #68
ahelwer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China and Vietnam. Taiwan to a lesser extent.

You mean two countries with the some of the worst human rights records, China is literally committing genocide as we speak, used the power to imprison to beat back a virus. Seems like a hammer looking for a nail or a broken clock is right twice a day type situation.

Okay, then take that lesson from them. This isn't a referendum on their entire system of government. It's a demonstration of how much we have failed by comparison. "Power to imprison" has nothing to do with it, or the US would be crushing it.
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