Tag Archives: health care

Failure to Perform

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As the California Republican delegation to the US House of Representatives have shown, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) is failing—in particular in getting Federally supplied Wuhan Virus vaccines actually injected into California’s citizens.

California’s distribution of supplied vaccines to locations where citizens can get injected is execrable. As a result, California’s injection rate is execrable. As a result of that cascade failure, California’s citizens are at severe—and unnecessary—risk.

The 11-member delegation are demanding answers from Newsom:

The state of California should explain to Californians why the vaccine distribution has had such failures, despite having months to prepare prior to the development of the vaccine[.]
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We write to express our serious concerns regarding the State of California’s slow, opaque decision-making process, and ever-changing approach to distributing COVID vaccines, which has been met with confusion and frustration by our constituents, local public health officials, and front-line health care providers[.]

Concretely, out of 7.8 million vaccine doses delivered to California by the Federal government, the State has injected only a bit over 5 million. That leaves more than a third of the doses undelivered, potentially going to waste, since the current iterations of the vaccines have a relatively short shelf life.

Newsom’s excuse?

The issue at the end of the day is supply. We need to manufacture more Moderna vaccine, more Pfizer vaccine. We need to get the federal approval of the J&J vaccine. We need to provide ample supply so we can plan

That is, to use the technical term, a crock. It’s also insulting to our intelligence.

California, despite being told for months that one or more vaccines would be ready by the end of the year (originally by November, but medical developments don’t follow government schedules), declined to bother to plan for their delivery to the State, and so California failed to plan the logistics chain of getting delivered supplies injected into citizens.

Nor does California have a supply problem, not with that third of the supply they already have delivered undistributed and uninjected.

California—Newsom’s administration—has a performance problem. It’s still not bothering with the supplies on hand.

There’s another dark aspect to this failure to perform. That is that Newsom’s attitude is typical of Progressive-Democrats’ demand for and acceptance of control from the center. It’s also typical of the dual that is their avoidance of their personal and political responsibility as State governing personnel in our federal republic—a structure which makes States first and primarily responsible for their own domestic practices.

Too Much Dependence

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…on the central government in DC.

Sunday’s Wall Street Journal had a piece decrying the problems with getting the Wuhan Virus vaccines “the last mile” into folks’ shoulders. They’re right that that’s a serious problem. Even though the Federal government is behind schedule on getting vaccine doses into the States’ hands, those States have the bulk of those delivered vaccines still in the refrigerators, uninjected—they’re vastly behind schedule.

The States and locals, though, are mischaracterizing the problem. Typical is this:

Jeff Duchin [Health Officer & Chief, Communicable Disease Epidemiology & Immunization Section, Public Health], Seattle and King County, WA, said the federal government succeeded in helping fund and purchase vaccines that were developed in record-breaking time, but said it didn’t do nearly enough to ensure that the “last-mile” distribution efforts would be successful.

He’s badly mistaken, and that’s dangerous for Washington’s citizens, and the error itself is dangerous for all Americans. That “last mile” is, and can only be, the responsibility of the States. The Federal government has no authority there.

That’s the nature of our federal republic structure of governance.

The States—Progressive-Democrat-run and Republican-run alike—had been told for months that vaccines would be available by the end of the year. Where was their planning? Even if they didn’t believe the ability to execute commitment, or the commitment itself, that prior planning would have been useful whenever the vaccines arrived. The States chose not to bother.

Surveillance State

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And it’s not the People’s Republic of China this time. It’s a European ally.

Spain is planning to keep a record of individuals who refuse to receive the coronavirus vaccine, said the country’s minister of health on Monday.

Worse, Salvador Illa, Spain’s Minister of Health says,

The log of people who refuse vaccination will be shared with the country’s “European partners,” but will not be shared with employers or otherwise made public….

Not even simple, ordinary doctor-patient confidentiality matters here. This medical information will be shared around so all of Europe’s governments can participate in a pan-European surveillance state, even though the putative purpose of such surveillance—so that local employers, et al., can take “appropriate” measures—will be blocked.

The contradiction is so obvious it can only be taken as a distraction from the move’s true purpose: to take an initial step in tracking the details of the daily lives of citizens.

This is the Europe Joe Biden and his ilk want us to emulate. Of course, that dovetails nicely with the administrative state he and his want to expand in our nation.

Economic Recovery

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What sort of recovery will we have in 2021 with the Wuhan Virus situation under control and, with the release of two vaccines (I’m betting on the come with Moderna as I write on Friday) and others in the nearby pipeline about to stamp the virus into the mud?

Jon Sindreu, in The Wall Street Journal, provided a couple of clues, although he was writing toward a different purpose. This graph of his is my first clue:

He fleshed that out with this:

Flow-of-funds data recently published by the Federal Reserve shows that companies have accumulated even more cash than debt this year: their liquid assets were up 25% in the third quarter. On a net basis, debt was down 7.9%. Relative to GDP, it remains well below 2007 levels.

Another clue:

Nor are property and asset prices tanking, hitting households’ net worth as they did in 2008. So consumers have kept spending when they could.

There’s more in his article, but the upshot is this: 2021’s recovery (and into the later years) won’t be nearly as weak as some have feared. It’ll be strongly positive, although—because of 2020’s already in-progress recovery—it’s unlikely to be quite as strong as hoped.

Another Reason

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…why neither the People’s Republic of China nor the World Health Organization can be trusted.

Opposition from the Chinese government is preventing participants in a World Health Organization meeting on the Covid-19 pandemic from learning directly about one of the world’s biggest coronavirus success stories.
Taiwan hasn’t recorded a locally transmitted coronavirus infection in about seven months but has been blocked from participating in a virtual gathering this week [last week as this is posted] of the WHO’s 194-member World Health Assembly because of objections from Beijing, which considers the self-ruled island part of its territory.

WHO was carefully silent on the shunning, mindful of its master’s requirements.

Never mind that the Republic of China just might have some ideas on how to control the Wuhan Virus.

This is the WHO that Joe Biden wants us to cozy up to.

This is the PRC that Joe Biden wants us to trust so.