I don’t have enough information to claim that the above was the case. I don’t know what each party there was forced to do or was capable of doing. Nor do I have enough information to say whether that, or any of the other experiences passed on to me were either vanishingly small or commonplace. That would be for the USA people to decide.
The anecdotes given to me described a situation in the USA, experienced by people in the USA, of a period of time where some older people were still struggling to negotiate the various booking systems whilst at the same time some young people were walking up and getting vaccinated. They were examples given that highlighted the apparent disparity and patchwork nature of the roll-out (as that was the specific topic of conversation). Is it possible that the young people had navigated the exact same system better than the old people? Sure. were they just opportunistic in a way that the old people could’ve been? sure.
I don’t know whether there was any asymmetry in the options available to each only that the experiences of those that I’ve spoken to in the USA suggests a system that was in places complicated and a hotch-potch of differing access and differing levels of support that in places left the more vulnerable people struggling to get appointments.
If you are telling me that the above scenario was impossible in the USA and couldn’t have happened, or that the impression given to me of wide disparities in roll-out then OK, I guess they were lying or misremembering or misrepresenting their experiences. I have no way of verifying one way or another.
I would point out though that others in the thread have given examples of exactly the sort of disparities across communities and states that frustrated my colleagues and their friends and families.
Remember, this was the sum total of my original point in response to bump talking about the haphazard nature of the USA vaccine roll-out…
The example I first mentioned about the 18 year-olds and the 60+ year-olds was just that, an example (and a pretty much throwaway one at that) it just highlighted some key differences in approach and outcome between the USA and the UK. If you don’t accept that experience then feel free to insert any other of your choosing.
Feel free to tell me that it didn’t happen or couldn’t happen and I’ll take you at your word if you are certain of that, I don’t think it changes my wider point.
Anyway. Hijack over for me. One questionable anecdote isn’t relevant to the topic at hand (although patchy vaccine coverage is)
I’d be willing to bet that what you were hearing was old farts who were grumpy that they couldn’t just go to their GP and get it, instead of going to the county site and getting like anyone else. It was inconvenience or novelty that they were grumbling about, not absolute unavailability.
I don’t think anyone is calling you a liar. It’s just that an individual’s experience is what we call an anecdote. Most states loosely followed CDC guidelines for who got vaccinated and when that happened. Basically, we vaccinated the 1a group, followed by 1b, and then 1c (not everyone, but this covered a shit ton of people), and finally everyone else in group 2. The start and stop dates of each group varied by state a bit based on how quickly they got through the previous group, but those orders were roughly maintained by most states.
Totally agreed, and totally believed. I would point out that what you originally wrote is nothing remotely close to those examples or what you’re saying now. Again, here is what you wrote before:
That reads as bullshit “America sucks” propaganda. And then when asked to clarify where in America, and you said Connecticut, that got my back up.
What you’re saying now is totally different, and seems perfectly reasonable. I do not disagree. “Disordered” is a fair characterization, no doubt.
About the validity of the anecdote? by all means. It wasn’t important in the first place. It is still relevant to discuss patchy vaccine coverage and how that does impact the degree to which countries can learn to live with the virus.
I said the people I spoke to were in Connecticut. That’s where they are based. I have no idea where their family and friends are reporting from.
I’m sorry if it got your back up or if you read it in that way. I’d be a fool to think that “America Sucks” seeing as I have seen first hand over the past 18 months what can be achieved by my (American) employer in creating, testing and delivering a working vaccine to the world that will save millions of lives.
I have a vested interest in getting that vaccine into as many people as possible, it is a subject close to my heart and it bothers me to see people missing out for want of a better process.
Anyway, hijack on the anecdote is now over.
The relevant point was, and remains, that the USA vaccine roll out was patchy to say the least. That much at least should be uncontentious.
It has left large pockets of unvaccinated vulnerable people. The initial short, dual vaccination regime may also be relevant in terms of waning protection. Whatever the reasons for that happening (and the USA is not alone in this) it will impact on ongoing infection and death rates and forms the backdrop against which to have the discussion on how to live with the virus.
The infection rate in the UK is also very high but hospitalisations are not sky-rocketing. I suspect that is due to better targeted coverage and longer gaps between dose one and two.
The differences between the countries may appear small but those small differences matter greatly. e.g.
For over 75’s the USA has fully vaccinated about 80% of them. (for the UK it is about 95%)
Both sound high but with 13 million people in that USA demographic that leaves 2.6 million people unprotected. The mortality of Covid for that age range is about 10-15%.
You can guarantee with the delta that pretty much all of those 2.6 million people will be exposed and so you could realistically see 300k+ deaths from that group alone. If the vaccinations were stepped up to 95% that would be more like 80k+. So patchy coverage certainly matters and such calculations will probably be taken into account when deciding what a country will bear.
I’ll give you the waning protection from the short dual shot window. But that first sentence raises an eyebrow.
“It” has left large pockets of unvaccinated people…By “It” I presume you’re referring to the patchy vaccine rollout? Because that doesn’t track at all.
The patchy vaccine rollout left people exposed for longer, but none of them are still exposed now. I’m pretty sure that every single person in the US who is willing to be vaccinated was vaccinated months ago. It’s just that a third of the country feels the same way about getting a vaccine as they do about the government taking away their guns. They would rather die than submit. It’s hard to lay the blame for them being unvaccinated on the patchy vaccine rollout.
…I think the point of confusion here is just how differently vaccines were rolled out in the UK in comparison to the US.
The vaccine roll-out in the UK was extremely well done and efficient. And a large part of that is down to the NHS. When properly resourced (and left to its own devices) the NHS is one of the best healthcare systems in the world. And they, despite many failings IMHO of other parts of the British pandemic response (often when the NHS was bypassed in favour of private enterprise) really knocked it out of the park here.
In the US vaccine distribution is handled at the State level. So you’ve got some states where fully vaccinated people are at 68% like Vermont, and other states like West Virginia which is at 40%. The rollout is inconsistent, not always strategic, and the potential for inequity or issues were much higher, especially in the early days of the rollout. Some of those issues are outlined here in this article in the Washington Post.
The rate of vaccination has stalled in the US, down from a peak in April, and that has been followed by a rise in deaths. The US is on its way to another Christmas peak.
The really big problem America is facing right now is that the eggs are really now all in the vaccination basket. The “Mask mandates, lockdowns, closures, and so forth had almost no effect on Covid” narrative has really taken hold (you can see that in this thread) and its hard to put that genie back into the bottle now., Especially when you have prominent people like Nate Silver firmly in that camp.
So that is why the vaccination mandates are coming in. Some sort of a drastic intervention is needed right now to try and flatten the curve again.Things are as bad now in the US as they were back in December 2020. With some states reporting numbers inconsistently, it is a bit hard to get a handle on exactly how bad things are. But 3 days ago when I posted the 7-day average on daily deaths was 1600. I just checked again right now and its almost at 1900. Things are about as bad as they have ever been. You are well into another wave that, because some states are actively sabotaging the pandemic response, may well peak higher than ever before. Something needs to be done. And the first thing that needs to be done is to recognize how bad things are right now.
Stipulating that his word is “patchy” while my word is “disordered.” It was pretty hectic in the early weeks, and my octogenarian parents did have to jump through some hoops to sign up online back in February. I’ll give him “patchy.” Close enough.
He seems to be under the false impression that we’re still struggling to distribute vaccines, and if only we could get shots out to people then we could get up to a higher percentage. In all probability, every willing American has already been vaccinated.
It was distributed to states because the states are the ones involved with health care in the US. There was no disparity in availability. it was all demand driven.
And again, I can’t stress this enough, any unvaccinated American who wants to get vaccinated right now could get their first shot before the day ends. And it’s already mid-afternoon.
The rollout has reached perfection, as a matter of fact. Anyone who wants a shot can immediately get one pretty much anywhere. EDIT: And of course it’s free.
If people want to risk death then that’s their choice. the list of people who die of smoking, not wearing their seat belts, not wearing helmets etc is long and self inflicted.
We are at a point where all who want to be vaccinated have received it.
…the success of the NHS’s rollout wasn’t due to “availability.” Just having vaccines available doesn’t guarantee uptake and we know this because in the US where vaccines are widely available people aren’t getting vaccinated.
A pandemic is a public health emergency, and it demands a unified public health response. I’m well aware that in the United States that the states are the ones involved with healthcare. It’s one of the reasons why vaccine uptake has been inconsistent, why some places are doing better than others, and so many people are dying right now. All I’m doing is pointing that out.
there was no inconsistency in the US. It was demand driven. Each state was engaged based on the supply available and the demand sought by the state. The same thing would have occurred in the UK only the word “State” would have another regional name associated with it.