Some clinics in my state have been sited specifically in areas where most residents are poor and/or predominantly non-white, in order to make it easier for people in these groups, who also have higher rates of covid-19 deaths, to get vaccinated. There are plenty of areas in the same state that are predominately rich and/or white. For people with lots of money and great internet access to use that advantage to take appointments at clinics far from them which were set there specifically to let poorer people get a chance at vaccine is IMO wrong.
ETA: For a while the only appointments available (other than for medical/care workers) were in a few large cities; for people from other areas of the state to travel to these, which appeared to be intended for the use of anyone who could get there, I think was fine.
It’s been really difficult to get vaccinated in the Chicago area. I know a number of people who were only able to get appointments by traveling hours away (appointments seem a tad easier to get in DeKalb, Peoria, Springfield, or even all the way south, practically in St. Louis). I do wonder what the process was for deciding how much vaccine to send where - there are tons of people who work in Chicago but live in other counties, or even other states, not to mention all the patients of large, Chicago-based teaching hospitals who would be eligible for vaccination that way.
I am in the recently expanded 1b+ category, and a friend managed to snag me an appointment in a nearby county, but the county then strong-armed the pharmacy into cancelling the appointments of everyone who didn’t live or work in that county (not that anyone ever asked where I worked). I haven’t yet had any luck getting an appointment anywhere closer, though seniors statewide are eligible to schedule appointments at the United Center and I won’t even be able to try until 4 pm tomorrow. Wish me luck then…
And yet, Los Angeles County has both struggled to distribute the vaccines it has gotten while complaining it hasn’t gotten more. Meanwhile, California has no schedule for vaccinating the general population and it is becoming increasingly evident that if you don’t fall into any of the Phase 1 categories, you cannot expect vaccination before the end of summer. Meanwhile, private schools, tech companies, and various politically connected people are about to get mysterious grey market vaccines while counties are reporting errors in delivery numbers. Good times for all.
They originally struggled but are now on track. And I already got both vaccines, and they will have teachers done pretty soon. They are well started on Phase 2. My wife, who is a critical worker also got both hers. So, you are very wrong. Listening to outdated or Fox news?
Nothing about black market vaccines is in the news around here.
That cite doesnt even list a Phase two. In fact the state doesn’t mention a Phase 2. But the CDC does.
However, I am going by the CDC, where teachers and essential works are Phase two, and we are well into that: K-12 teachers and school staff and child care workers • Critical workers in high-risk settings— workers who are in industries essential to the functioning of society and substantially higher risk of exposure https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-20/02-COVID-Dooling.pdf
And we are well into Teachers and Essential workers, as I said.
I personally am traveling a considerable distance to receive my vaccination (about 240 miles each way).
I am eligible under my state’s guidelines. I am receiving my vaccinations within my state of residence and from a state-run site. This site is open to all state residents. So I am following all the rules.
I would have been delighted to avoid these trips. But the vaccination centers closer to me were all booked up. If you want to argue that I’m taking this vaccine from somebody else, why not turn it around and argue that they would have been taking the vaccine from me? If a big city runs out of vaccine and a small town still has a supply, doesn’t that argue that not enough vaccine was supplied to the big city?
It doesn’t list Phase 2 (or Phase 1c or 1d) because California hasn’t implemented those phases in the state vaccination plan. You don’t know what you are talking about and now you are trying to shift goalposts to justify your mistake in addition to the ad hominem attack. Stop digging.
My 84 year old mother came to stay with us back in October. She didn’t officially move in with us because reasons. When her age group came open here, she thought she shouldn’t get vaccinated here because she would be taking it away from someone else who lives here. I am a bad daughter because I scheduled her anyhow. She got her second shot Wednesday.
I got my vaccine locally, not because of ethics, but because my needle-phobia successfully negotiated the terms of its surrender (“Fine! You can get the shot, but you fucking well better not go out of your way for it!”)
Many of my teacher friends, however, drove to a neighboring state to get theirs. Our county has a very high population of retirees and of health-care workers, so we were really slow on getting supplies for educators. Meanwhile, a nearby county in another state had tons of open appointments every day.
As others have said, it’d be one thing if your driving somewhere else means that people in that community get turned away. But when your willingness to drive means that the US gets more vaccines in more arms more quickly, that’s entirely a good thing.
What puzzles me about people travelling across state lines etc. is whether there is any checking of credentials.
When I got my shot, I had to provide ID. I don’t know what they’d have done if my ID had shown I was from another county.
There was no vetting of health conditions at checkin: my county had opened things up to “18-64 with underlying conditions”. The signup site said something like “do you have x, y z conditions” and I said, truthfully, that I did - but it did not ask which of them I had, nor did I need to provide any evidence of it (OK, one of them was BMI > a certain amount, which I plainly am).
If you have to book an appointment, and the appointment-booking site lets you reserve one, there’s no huge ethical dilemma - presumably you’re not lying about your address or health conditions. I think it would be bad form to snag a spot in an area where the locals are underserved and cannot travel to get their immunizations easily, though.
It is frustrating to me how widely varied the various states are regarding eligibility. Supposedly Florida has just opened things up for teachers. In other states, you still can’t register if you’re under 70.
I’m surprised people are fretting about county. As best as I can tell, the feds are allocating vaccine to the states, not to the counties. And then every state is doing it differently. My state has sites for anyone in the state, sites for people who live in a defined area (typically a town), special-purpose pop-up sites for nursing homes, hospitals, employees of a specific employer, etc.
Admittedly, my state doesn’t do much of anything by county. So maybe it’s just hard for me to wrap my head around that. I’ve always lived in the North East, where the majority of local government is at the town/township/city level, not the county level.
Anyway, I see an issue flying across the country to game the eligibility system. But I don’t see an issue driving around your state, nor driving between the state you live in and the state you work in. For “herd immunity” purposes, you are a member of both state’s populations, and both states have a legitimate interest to get you vaccinated.
I don’t see any problem with that. Some states have indeed had large operations set up that were intended for anybody within the state to come to.
I don’t see any problem with that one either. She may theoretically be living somewhere else, but in practice she’s currently living with you. And encouraging 82 year olds, or even young people, to take long trips they wouldn’t otherwise be taking in order to get a vaccine they can get without travelling seems a really bad idea. When the problem is disease spread, you want people to stay put as much as possible.
I think the state line there is far less of an issue than “nearby site with lots of openings available.” If there were that many openings daily, then anybody living closer also had chances to get them; and when people live close to a state line, appointments in the next state may require less travel than appointments in their own. Presumably the site in the next state was open to otherwise eligible people in your state.
I had to provide address when I signed up for the appointments, and had to provide driver’s license (or, presumably, other ID) when I showed up at the site. I was also asked for county of residence, though I’m pretty sure crossing county lines was allowed – the website showed me possible vaccination sites about the same distance from me but in two different counties, and all the information I was getting elsewhere was that at least in NY you could go to any county. [ETA: though some sites were specifically designed for residents in particular communities, and some large ones were restricted by zip code.] The county question may have been for statistics, or to help figure out future allocations.
From a couple of forms I came across when trying to book appointments, they aren’t currently in this area requiring proof of risk conditions, but only a signed affidavit – presumably they could prosecute if you lied on it, though I’d think it would be difficult to sort out who to prosecute. I was asked about conditions but not asked to sign an affidavit, but the particular clinic was only open to 65+ in any case and I was asked to show my license, presumably for proof of age as well as possibly for proof of address.