Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is • Hacker News Board

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#91

Post by smt88 » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #88

smt88 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one disputes that authoritarian governments do some things better. Even the Romans built it into their republic: they could appoint a tyrant during wartime to make quick decisions before returning power to the senate. It's incomplete (to the point of being irrelevant) to say that communists did Covid response better and not to mention all the other things they do worse. Given the choice, I'd still take a 10x worse…

> they could appoint a tyrant during wartime to make quick decisions before returning power to the senate. That's the entire point - the fact that many contemporary liberal societies can no longer use such tools is worth introspection. Many countries had quarantine act or equivalent emergency power structure designed for pandemics, but what good are they if current political climate make them infeasible. This overloo…

What is a historical example of a country with a mechanism for "temporary authoritarianism" where that mechanism was not abused to create permanent authoritarianism?

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#92

Post by JCharante » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

They mention having to enter insurance and other details repeatedly.

Why didn't Maryland simply create a MarylandVaxAuth site, where you create credentials and enter all your details like insurance and age.

Then their distribution centers can still have a scheduling system, but the first step is to log in with MarylandVaxAuth SSO and the 2nd step is to pick a time slot. If you already have a valid session cookie then you wouldn't need to type in your password. Just click yes allow Safeway Covid Vaccine Scheduling access to my vaccine related health details. Just need to give each partner an API key so they can set up sso and fetch patient details in case they want to automate things like checking for double-bookings or eligibility.

I think back in March people were expecting that we might need to vaccine our way out of this. It's been 10 months. Why do we only have shitty web applications? I think this is the most outrageous part. I don't understand how complicated it is to create and expand a distribution network for vaccines but I understand that building out an SSO system would dramatically help and it doesn't take 10 whole months to develop.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#93

Post by legulere » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #39

legulere wrote: post #23

> America’s distribution plan is no more fair or logical than a Soviet-style queue for cabbage. I don't see how a capitalist distribution system (if you have money you get it earlier) is in any way more fair than a system which is based on need. Capitalism's strength is in extracting resources and increasing production and efficiency in things there is a good market for. But it's not good at all in distributing thing…

When it comes to serious diseases I don't think we are ever in the 'realm of fairness'. In an ideal world, we would vaccinate every single person at the same time. But we can't do that so we have to prioritize based on varying strategies. The EU and the US have both been entirely inept when dealing with SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The rollout has to happen FAST on a planetary scale . Mutations happen as we speak and if we a…

I do not know about the US, but the problems of the EU are with acquiring enough vaccines (ordering too little and too late), not with distributing it. Distribution even is a per country thing. I cannot speak about the other EU countries but at least in Germany we have a fair vaccination queue based on risk and vaccination centers that are sitting idly just because there's not enough vaccine here yet.

Both my grandparents that still live are over 80 and I worried about them the most. They both were vaccinated in the beginning of January.

Re: Frustration Is Spreading Faster Than the Vaccine Is

#94

Post by teeray » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

We’re naturally inclined to a technical solution here with a web application. No matter what, this will flummox some fraction of the population. Also, when dates open up, the ideal of “first-come, first-serve” degenerates into a game of chance based on who can get through. Given this, a solution would have been to get the Selective Service System involved and use something similar to the algorithm NIST came up with for the draft (obviously there would need to be separate async registration for that since everyone doesn’t have to register for the draft). There’s enough demand for this that people are willing to reschedule their life around their vax appointment, so choosing an appointment slot is unnecessary.