Oh gosh, COIVD again?

We haven’t posted much on COVID lately. Frankly, it was just rather depressing. And by depressing, we are not strictly speaking about those who have suffered losses due to COVID infections, but also the frustration of watching media hype, hysteria (from all ends of the political spectrum, let us be clear about that) and mismanagement make a bad situation worse, and knowing that there is nothing we can do about it.

Anyway, now we have vaccines. And those are very helpful. There are always many questions that people have about vaccines, of course, but here we are going to address one question: How should the vaccines be distributed? What, based on past data and experience, is going to be the best way to get the vaccines as widely and effectively distributed as possible?

Well, get ready for some expected bad news. The people in charge are doing it wrong again.

Why? They mean well, but again you see the bureaucratic mind at work. In this case coming up with elaborate plans and scenarios to “control” (which is what bureaucracy and the people that love doing it is all about) the rollout.

For example, an area might have a complicated plan to vaccinate, oh, people in nursing homes, then some workers, the people of a certain age and so on and so forth.

It sounds good and reasonable, but in reality, all this does is slow down the supply chain and place barriers in front of people who actually want to get vaccinated. Hospitals and states have to make up their own elaborate plans on how to obtain and distribute it, a bureaucrat has to check and make sure all the plans are being followed, shipping has to be specifically arranged, and so on and so forth, slowing and narrowing the whole process.

A better plan? Make the vaccine widely and easily available to everyone who wants it. That’s it.

You might ask: “Why should an 18-year-old, who has a one in a million chance of dying from an infection, and in fact, is likely not even to get sick, get in line ahead of everybody else?”

Because in this case, the often misleading and obscuring statement “We are all in this together” is true. Remember the saying about six degrees of separation? That 18-year-old may live with a mother who is a nurse at a hospital, or have an 85-year-old grandmother that they visit regularly, or have a significant other that has those things.

Vaccines do protect the individual, but they are most importantly about breaking the chain of transmission. Nothing in life is ever 100 percent perfect, but even if 50 percent of the people around an active case do not become transmitters themselves, that’s a huge big deal.

The faster and more generally we get people their shots the better. Time for a mass vaccination campaign, with shots available at workplaces, pharmacies, doctor’s offices, heck, fast food restaurants, with no restrictions. That will work.