by MakeUsWell
Current Situation
As of 2/22/21, ~44.1 M Americans or ~13.4% of the population have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. Overall ~19.4 M or ~5.9% have received both doses.
In the continental US, West Virginia still leads. ~9.7% of the people there have received both doses. Alaska is at ~11.3% of the population with both doses. West Virginia has ~2.5X the population of Alaska.
California at ~5% is under-performing, especially given the state's technological prowess.
Prioritization To Date
So far, the federal, state, and local governments have prioritized a series of uncoordinated, inconsistent, confusing, and contradictory "standards" (oxymoron). These "standards" have varied not only by state but also from county to county.
Some examples:
- In Massachusetts, cut to the front of the line, if you're under 75 and accompany someone 75+. Resulted in people proffering money for the chance to go with someone 75+.
- Multiple doctors—we don't want to cite active cases or get sued—were arrested, charged, disciplined, or fined for illegal distributions that violated the prioritization laws.
- Vijay (not the real name of a verified source), hit it big in Silicon Valley. He and his girlfriend are healthy, 40 somethings. They donated money to a prominent Los Angeles college. 8 days later, they got vaccinated in private.
- Heather is a software engineer, and makes ~$300K+ at a FAANG company. She signed up to do gigs for Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Doordash in one day. Now she was a California, "essential worker" and could cut in line.
- Smokers in NJ, even those who are in their twenties, went to the front of the line, without any verification. Some posted the results on social media to gloat.
- Huge Ma is a talented Big Apple software developer. Huge—with a little help from friends, Kelley, Yu, and his cat—made Turbovax. Turbovax helped many people get appointments in a simple way. Something a complex, $44 million system built by Deloitte, commissioned by our government, funded by our tax dollars failed at.
Different data estimate ~60% -75% of Americans are nervous, anxious, edgy, or otherwise really stressed. And are suffering from some degree of mental disease or dysfunction.
Our anecdotal evidence suggests this number is probably 90%+.
We analyzed sentiments related to some of these state prioritization policies. ~80% of the sentiments were anger, rage, ad-hominem attacks, political identity name-calling, etc.
So the prioritizations lead to:
- More fighting and stress on Twitter/Facebook
- More complexity and confusion which the federal/state/or local governments can't execute
- Fewer people getting the vaccine and slower vaccine roll-out
We are in a war with the virus as it mutates. COVID has already uncovered and amplified a myriad of issues and ugliness in our society. Speed is a major advantage and we should move fast before things get more out of control
Contrarian?
This solution isn't contrarian. It's common sense.
No. More. Prioritizations.
Every American that wants the vaccine should get one.
Why?
It's better, faster, cheaper.
Why not?
Some may object by saying we don't have appointment or logistic systems on a national level. This conflates two different issues.
But, the government can solve both by taking Amazon up on it's offer. Dave Clark, CEO worldwide consumer wrote President Biden a letter on 1/20 offering Amazon's help with vaccinations.
And then the government can put a real hero who is passionate about this—like Huge Ma—in charge!