which is weird af to me.

You want teachers to return to schools BEFORE they get vaccinated? The fuck kinda sense does that make?

They need to get rid of any/all qualifications to get the vaccines and make it open to all.

IF they want to target some groups then they can run that parallel.

But vaccine availability should be the only thing blocking someone from getting vaccinated - and then all this bullshit about "I deserve it more than THAT person" or "You shouldn't have gotten the vaccine so we'll prosecute you" problems go away.

My dad, who has cancer and is diabetic, can’t get vaccine because he is not yet 65 years old.
Meanwhile my buddy who is 37 and healthy got a tip from a doctor friend that there was going to be extra doses leftover and got vaccinated a few weeks ago.
Just let everyone get vaccinated.

Prisma Health told me I qualify because I do IT in the healthcare industry. I’m a Director of IT, I don’t see any damn body and work from home 99% of the time. How do I qualify over your father? I took the vaccine anyways since I “qualify” but I still think it’s stupid as hell that I do.

People always clothe their criticism in "teachers unions", but deep down people just naturally seem to think that teachers are expendable, that it's not a real job, that it's what someone does instead of a real career. And we wonder why our K12 schools aren't better.

For any respiratory virus, transmission risk is about proximity and time. Close proximity can be okay if it's brief. Time can be okay if people keep good distance, have good ventilation, good masks, etc. But if you're near a carrier for an extended period of time, that's a problem. There is no job where someone is in closer contact with larger numbers of people, for more extended periods of time, than a K12 teacher.

Moreover, the fact that covid poses so little risk to kids is actually a very dangerous thing for teachers and parents. It means that kids can be extremely efficient vectors to spread the disease without showing any symptoms.

And now we have news organizations trying to "both sides" the issue of politicization of covid science, saying the administration is "caving to teachers unions" when "the science says schools are safe." The science doesn't say anything of the sort. What the science says is encouraging, but complicated, and the data on what people want to know is very thin.

People keep touting this study of Wisconsin schools where the covid rates within schools stayed low despite very high rates in the broader community. That's great, but it doesn't come close to giving us the kind of assurance to say "the science says it's safe to reopen schools." They only followed about a dozen schools, so the sample size is way too low to be sure they've captured something as statistically volatile as a schoolwide outbreak. Those schools also had very specific (and generally quite good) facilities and protocols. Also, the data was taken in Wisconsin, in winter, which is very different than, say, Los Angeles in the spring. We also know that variants are continually being naturally selected to spread more easily under our masking protocols. More transmissive variants have now largely taken over in some states and not in others.


We now have most health care workers and nursing home patients vaccinated. We can vaccinate particularly important groupings of people quite rapidly. Our focus now should be K12 teachers and day care workers. There's no reason to think that any other group is more important right now.

Until then: yes, nobody likes Zoom classes. But everybody's used to Zoom classes. It's not that big a deal to wait a few more months.

it's really hard to grasp why folks don't understand that kids being carriers could send teachers and admins in the hospitals.

maybe when all the companies have released vaccines and there's no supply issue, this will all be moot. until then my two are at the house, next to me.

If we're going to insist that kids go to school, groceries need to be on the shelves, and restaurants should stay open, then this country needs to do what it needs to do to get the vaccine to those population segments.

2. That said, the tier system makes sense, especially when the supply is limited. It's not about one population being "better" than another, it's about making sure high-risk and potentially high exposure population are inoculated. It's already turning into a system where the rich are getting more and quicker access to the vaccine, and eliminating any tier system will further exacerbate that.

3. I can only speak for out here in the Bay, but the only time that teachers getting vaccinated early got in the news were due to some malfeasance by a South Bay Hospital. The head administrator over one San Jose hospital got in trouble for telling teachers from a local school to lie and say that they were hospital employees so that they could receive the vaccine. That was dumb on the hospital part, and they lost the ability to give vaccines (except giving second shot to everyone who'd received the first)

4. We need to stop with the half measures in this country. Either pump billions (or trillions) of dollars into getting everyone vaccinated in a timely manner. Failing that (due to supply issues), we need to pump billions (or trillions) into making sure that everyone stays home from like a month or two and only places like hospitals, grocery stores, and restaurants are open. If that means freezing rents, mortgage, and utility payments and bailing out the "non-essential" business for that time period, so be it. But half-assing is why we're still in this mess.

5. Otherwise, I agree with everything Strav said.

while Strav is correct, until we have enough for everyone it makes sense to give it to certain groups first.

Nurses, grocery store workers, bus drivers.. they should all get it now.

But teachers? Everyone says the number one priority is getting kids back to school so parents can go back to work.

So why wouldn’t they make teachers a priority?

I think the question is largely moot until there are vaccines actually going to waste, and for the most part that's not happening yet.

If there are tiers, then teachers should be in one of the earliest tiers. If there aren't tiers, then doses should be reserved for teachers, health-care workers, etc.

I haven't fully followed the argument on whether tiers are good or bad. I imagine the issue is that the existence of the tiers introduces unnecessary complications and slows the process down more than they streamline it.

For example, mathematicians have studied the most efficient method to board passengers on airplanes. Should passengers be boarded in many small groups or in few large groups? Should the groups be defined by rows? Front to back, back to front, or something else? Or should they be defined from outside to inside (window, middle, aisle)? It turns out, if I remember the paper right, the one simple strategy that's more efficient than any of these strategies (including the standard airline strategy) is to board at random. Let the people on the plane in whatever order they got in line. Basically doing it randomly will naturally minimize conflicts of one person blocking another, at least to the extent that these conflicts can be minimized. The problem of boarding a plane is not the same as the problem of vaccinating a population, but I imagine a somewhat similar argument could be made for vaccinations, though I'm not sure.

At any rate, as I said above, so far the number of doses wasted because the right kind of people can't be found at the right time, seems to be minimal. So I'd probably say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

get vaccinated. And we aren’t at that point yet.

In your airplane boarding example, it’s relatively simple to figure out the most efficient way to board, because there shouldn’t be more passengers than seats. It would be much more complicated if you had 100 seats available for 200 passengers, with some of those 200 having a more urgent need to get on the flight either to save their own lives or to help others.

At that point you have to balance how quickly end efficiently you can get those 100 seats filled with who do has the most need to get on that flight vs. waiting for the next flight.

Unfortunately, there's not enough supply to meet the demand (wonder why?) so its gotta be triaged.

First, the tiers are not the same from state to state, and even in California they differ county to county.

I think it needs to have two tracks:

Track 1 - Some vaccine reserved and targeted to certain groups (which is what the tiers are doing now.)

Track 2- Open to ALL.

Even if track 2 has little supply it would allow some sort of access to everyone who wants it.

This way there's some sort of hope for people who right now may be VERY motivated to get it but can't because of arbitrary rules in their county or state.

We had 3 tiers for our hospital system that we spent days trying to figure out how to identify which employee were in which tier and we found it nearly impossible to accurately identify those people. luckily we didn't have to keep the tiers very long - but it was causing internal issues.


Note: I got my first dose in 2020, and my 2nd dose on Jan 13th, but if I hadn't I'd be going INSANE right now trying to get it.

Michigan also. It should be more consistent. But even with what you describe it's still tiered in the approach with two separate tracks and having some vaccines reserved for specific groups.

As of right now, there isn't enough vaccine availability to vaccinate everyone who would be in your track 1 (at least there isn't here in my area). Which means that in your track 2 plan there would still be no access to "everyone" that wants it.

>As of right now, there isn't enough vaccine availability to
>vaccinate everyone who would be in your track 1 (at least
>there isn't here in my area). Which means that in your track 2
>plan there would still be no access to "everyone" that wants
>it.

But the limiting factor would be SUPPLY - not arbitrary tiers that prevent you from all access.

I recognize it'll be months before the supply can come close to meeting demand - but I think they need to have a first come first serve available simultaneously.

is to use people that the public already trusts. particularly with large followings. celebs, athletes, musicians, etc.

its unfortunate that we cant launch a promotional charm offensive with people like the rock and steph curry getting the vaccine because we created this narrative that theyd be 'jumping the line'. even tho it would only take a handful of them to go a long way in swaying public opinion.

we may be dealing with supply scarcity right now but skepticism is the longer term threat. and it takes months of sustained/coordinated messaging to address. itd be best to start now so people are already primed by the time the vaccine *is* widely available.

i personally wouldn't take any medical advice from celebrities
but i know we live in a world where ppl live off of their every word
trumps admin really fucked up the ability to have a coordinated psa on the vaccine
and it will be extremely hard for anyone to counter all of the bs he spewed for months. ppl still like to bring up fauci saying not to wear masks. that was in march when we didn't know what we were dealing with. now 11 months later they have a larger grasp on it, but ppl are holding on to what happened and what was said last year.

just like with the voting stickers, they need an i am safe sticker or something. make it a hashtag and have it spread on social media. you need to be inundated with the amount of people that have been vaccinated and are safe versus the few that have died after getting vaccinated.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Church pastors, family doctors, teachers, etc. has historically been shown to do a much better job convincing people, particularly people of color, to get vaccinated. Way more trust with those well known in the local community

If Jakes isn't convincing his congregation while working with Black doctors along with Fauci himself, I don't know if these folks can be convinced at all.

And doesnt fit the same criteria as a local church pastor or the local doctor a patient has been seeing his or her own life. As much as i love Fauci, he wouldnt have the same impact on the black community as the family doctor advocating for vaccines.

comments aren't necessarily his own church members, but random Christians who see him as a celebrity.

That being said, I was REALLY impressed at the panel - having the Black doctors who were involved with the research on the vaccine, his own personal doctor who is a Black woman, in addition to Fauci while asking the actual real questions on issues we see Black people bringing up and getting transparent answers was something I thought was impactful.

One of the questions that was actually brought up addresses your point also - he asked him if they are working with local Black churches on being vaccine distribution centers so people in Black communities would have access (they brought up the statistics about Black communities currently having much less access to the vaccines.)

Not sure how i missed it taking place

It was really well done - felt like a CNN townhall. No religious element to it at all:

https://youtu.be/JEXB0lyxqqs

one of them said the vaccine will be used for tracking. as in a tracking device in the vaccine. I'm guessing that person doesn't realize how cell phones work.

another said it alters your dna.

phew!

more transparent having the comments there, but goodness...

immediately thought about local communities and using people you trust.

those celebrities are part of the conspiracy. I’ve already seen stuff like that.

Here’s an example - TD Jakes put together a GREAT forum about the Covid vaccine, interviewing Fauci, Black doctors who were instrumental in developing the vaccine - Dr. Kizzy Corbett and Dr. Onyema Ogbuagu, and his own personal doctor:

https://youtu.be/JEXB0lyxqqs

The reason for the forum was a study showing that only 14% of African Americans trusted taking one of the Covid vaccines. Jakes got all kinds of questions from folks, including the typical questions you see people asking like “why should Black people trust a vaccine after scandals like the Tuskegee experiment”, “how effective is this vaccine really”, “what are the risks/side effects”, etc. and he got direct answers from these experts.

But look at the comments - people from Jakes’ own audience and congregation STILL not trusting information from “experts who are have been paid to get us on board”, and are disappointed that he would bring those people in to talk to them.

If TD James’s own church members aren’t trusting him about the vaccine, I doubt that celeb endorsements or examples of them taking it would/will have any big impact.

it's not tuskegee, it's not even the bad health system. they don't know what's in anything, but they feel like they can get attention now for being anti vaccine so it's a thing.

imo, the only real thing you cna use is peer pressure, and it will only work on some

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

even if i do get the vaccine and believe everyone should

Like dude goes out of his way to prevent us from getting vaccinated, despite being the first person DEMANDING schools open in person from day one. I've been teaching a full in person class since the first day of school.

This dude is a dirtbag of epic proportions.

***

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/18/florida-vaccine-desantis-covid-clinic/

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) unveiled a “pop-up” clinic offering coveted coronavirus vaccines in an affluent, mostly White part of Manatee County, Fla., lawmakers on both sides of the aisle slammed the plan for excluding residents in the rest of the county.

But on Wednesday, the governor offered no apologies, warning that he could instead take the doses elsewhere.

“If Manatee County doesn’t like us doing this, then we are totally fine with putting this in counties that want it,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “We’re totally happy to do that.”

As wealthy individuals in Florida and around the country snap up a disproportionate number of vaccination appointments, critics say DeSantis’s plan for the “pop-up” clinic near Tampa is only bound to widen disparities.

Some jurisdictions have targeted Zip codes that were hit especially hard by the virus, but many in Manatee County fear DeSantis’s plan will do the opposite, benefiting an area that has been least affected by the pandemic — including a few of the individuals who worked with the governor.

“You’re taking the Whitest demographic and richest demographic in Manatee County and putting them before everyone else,” County Commissioner Misty Servia (R) said at a meeting this week.

Lack of health services and transportation impede access to vaccine in communities of color

Residents in Manatee County, which sits just south of Tampa, had grown increasingly frustrated by a randomized selection process used to distribute the vaccine. While about 180,000 people — half the population — had already signed up, Florida’s chaotic rollout and a limited supply have prevented many from getting their shots.

As the Bradenton Herald reported, DeSantis sought to address the problem by quietly contacting a campaign donor: Rex Jensen, a real estate developer whose company built Lakewood Ranch, a mostly Republican, mainly White master-planned community in Manatee County.

Working in private with the county commission chair, Vanessa Baugh (R), they struck a deal. If Jensen hosted an additional vaccination clinic on his development, the governor would offer state health workers to administer the vaccines and National Guard troops to control the flow of people. The supply of those doses would go beyond Manatee County’s weekly allotment of doses from the state government, the Herald reported.

There was just one catch: Rather than opening the pop-up vaccination site to everyone in the county, it would only offer doses to residents in two Zip codes — 34202 and 34211 — which cover much of Lakewood Ranch and other well-to-do residential areas nearby and fall largely in Baugh’s district.

“It wasn’t choosing one Zip code over another,” DeSantis said at the news conference on Wednesday. “We wanted to find communities that had high levels of seniors living in there, and this obviously has a high concentration.”

But once the plan was announced this week, many on the Republican-dominated body took DeSantis and Baugh to task. According to the Herald, at least three commissioners had not been aware of how the pop-up clinic was planned — or that it would not be open to all residents.

“What about the rest of the county? I’m shocked that we would do this without even the board knowing about it,” Commissioner Carol Whitmore (R) told the newspaper.

Commissioner Reggie Bellamy, the board’s sole Democrat, said at a public meeting that he had “been fighting like hell to show people that the lottery is equal and we cannot compromise the system. All of a sudden, someone is telling me we were able to pull a certain demographic out.”

Some, like Servia, also criticized the plan for vaccinating the most affluent neighborhoods ahead of underserved areas that had been pummeled by the pandemic.

About 8 percent of Manatee County’s coronavirus infections were reported in the two targeted Zip codes around Lakewood Ranch, the Herald noted. While both of these areas had recorded less than 1,600 cases, more than 4,300 people tested positive in one Zip code farther west.

But the architects of the pop-up clinic were unapologetic about the plan, saying that it ultimately served as a “good deal” that would benefit the county overall.

“I don’t really care, as long as we get needles in arms,” Jensen, the developer, told the Herald. “It’s not a discussion about groups. It’s about getting vaccines out into the public.”

At DeSantis’s news conference on Wednesday, the governor struck a similarly defiant tone, suggesting that he could simply send the vaccines to other counties in Florida.

“If there’s going to be folks that are going to complain about getting more vaccines … I mean, I wouldn’t be complaining,” he said. “I’d be thankful that we’re able to do it because, you know what, we didn’t need to do this at all.”

And Baugh, the board chair, told the Herald that the arrangement was “not a negative" one, because “many people out east haven’t received the vaccines and are underserved.”

It appears she may have been talking about herself, too.

On Wednesday evening, WTSP reported that she had asked the Lakewood Ranch clinic to prioritize herself and four others for vaccine shots — including Jensen and his father, both of whom do not live in the qualifying Zip codes.

of the vaccine in FL. not sure if that's still the case and hope it's not. he don't give a af.

Disciplining them into non-existence is probably a priority for Republicans. Disciplining them into submission is probably a priority for Democrats.

They're both going to lose, per my subject line, but everybody's doing their dharma here.

...and SMH@Ds falling for it...

This is a Trumpster/R faiLure

but damn if Rs aren’t controlling the narrative and leaving Ds to hold the L

It’s a year, 365 days into the pandemic

We had all summer, ALL SUMMER, to retrofit schools with proper ventilation

...which some schools need pandemic or not...

Rs passed $Ts in covid relief...where it at?

NBA been testing since March

Rapid tests in schools, nope
Modernized ventilation, nope
Vaccines, nope

and Ds are falling for the BS and attacking teachers

I wish people would just admit...
They don’t want teachers, they want babysitters

Truly sad watching how our educators are being treated

I expected better from this administration.

but why the fuck would they make teacher report a week BEFORE they can get the vaccine?

I’m sure this is happening in some/most states but its common for Charlotte Public Schools. They do everything ass backwards

How much $ from the relief/stimulus packages that already passed...

...went to education?

think this all the way through.
Putting the cart before the horse....smh.

So there's going to be a month of exposure for her until she's fully protected....makes no sense.
AND (hopefully this doesn't affect her)... everyone that we know that's had the vaccine had a ROUGH 1-2 days after they got their 2nd shot. So there's going to likely be a grip of teachers down for the count at the exact same time.

but what kind of trouble were you referring to in your original post?