Trump and his minions can’t even count properly:
I’m not sure what people are talking about in terms of the US not targeting unemployed people and the difficulty of the federal government to intervene in state unemployment benefits. The federal government provided an additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits for several months. People were getting paid more after being laid off and weren’t returning to work when the businesses reopened, at least in one instance that I have personal knowledge of. They had to use the state unemployment system to deliver it, of course, and it led to there being an issue of getting programmers to work on the ancient systems that maintained it in at least one state.
Of course, that $600 a week didn’t last forever, though they brought back $300 a week payments for several months in the new stimulus. However, the $600 a week (on top of state benefits) was so incredibly generous that people should have been saving the money from those few months they got it, but probably didn’t because people suck with money…
So at the rate the COVID vaccine is being administered right now, it will take 10 years to get to the 80% vaccinated population likely needed for herd immunity in the US. So perhaps June-ish was slightly too optimistic a result.
Anybody know if Biden will be able to do anything to get us more doses and help the states distribute, or does he need Congress for that?
Also, the states have been slow to actually use the vaccine doses they have. California got like 1.7 mil doses and has performed only 300,000 injections. Texas got 1.2 mil doses and has given only 150,000 injections.
I suspect your math is bad. $600/40hr = $15/hr. You’re saying we should have taken what is the equivalent of $15 an hour and somehow stretched that to last us an additional half a year, making it more like $5 an hour averaged out.
And if you think half a year is too long, it’s not. My dad was flat out told he couldn’t apply again until 2021–after they cut off his unemployment either 2 or 4 weeks early (I can’t remember now).
I also note that $15 an hour is what many are pushing as minimum wage, due to it being the average cost of living. Even if you are frugal, you can’t make that stretch 3 times as long.
It’s a Noble Peace Prize for Literature.
… Tweets division.
… category of “six-year-olds and under”.
I imagine he just needs a functioning HHS Department that knows how to work with the states, which I assume he will have.
Also plays right into the hands of Russia and China. Beyond the obvious potential for ISIS propaganda, regional/local deal brokers are probably going to have an easier time not dealing with the United States government, and an easier time striking deals with China, Russia, and other regional powers. Under Trump, the dislocation of the United States as a diplomatic power is occurring at an extremely rapid pace. Yes, we have economic power, but that is also being challenged by China, which is on pace to overtake the US as the largest global economic power (GDP) by 2028.
It’s so slow that I wonder how many people will get the vaccine before COVID mutates and therefore requires a new vaccine.
I’ve pointed out before that this vaccine distribution is a monumental logistics challenge, with the vaccines needing to transported and stored at something like -70 C, and that’s not even taking into account the administration of two doses per person separated by a week or more.
If we could vaccinate a million people a day, it would take almost all of 2021 to get to 80%. And right now we don’t have nearly the infrastructure to do a million a day.
This will be Biden’s D-Day. Handle it well and he will go down as a hero. But if it doesn’t go well – due to events he may not be able to control – it perfectly sets up the narrative that “Trump made the vaccine happen, but Biden screwed it up.”
Great picture, in which the Orange Peril does his classic imitation of a camel’s asshole. Alec Baldwin has tried to parody it on SNL, but no one can do authentic camel’s asshole like the Orange one.
Yeah, and the Senate/Mitch will fight him at every turn if more $ is needed to buy, distribute, and administer the vaccine, I’m afraid. I’m hoping Biden will have other ways to accomplish this without needing the Senate to cooperate. Move some money around like trump did for the useless wall. I grind my teeth to bits when I think of the actual good that money could have done. 
Maybe Biden should try to “sell it” to Trumpistos by advertising it as a valiant effort to distribute the fabulous “trump vaccine” and ask them why Mitch is obstructing delivery of trump’s gift to the people (gag).
I read that the UK variant is already here. This has my stomach in knots.
Guess it’s my own fault. I actually believed what this administration claimed about vaccine distribution. Shoulda known better after all the lies.
I think the vaccine will probably stand up to the UK variant, but in another year to 18 months, if only 50% of the country is vaccinated, what then?
The Moderna vaccine, however, only requires refrigeration at normal refrigerator temperatures. And even the much more sensitive Pfizer vaccine can be stored at +2 to 8°C for up to five days. The dose separation for both is on the order of about three weeks.
The problem as I understand it isn’t even the logistics of getting the vaccine to destination points. It’s getting it into the arms of our citizens. Virtually every health care worker or almost-health care worker from every imaginable sector has already been co-opted into treatment of the disease.
Extra people trained in how to give jabs are in extremely short supply.
Good to know – thanks!
This, exactly. A month or so ago, 60 Minutes did a segment on Operation Warp Speed, and they interviewed the head of the project, General Gustave Parna. He said what you wrote, pretty much word for word. The final step in the vaccination program requires many thousands of trained healthcare workers, at many thousands of locations.
Have a semi-retired nurse friend who has been recruited by CVS to poke people. AFAIK she hasn’t started yet, but it shows that they are scrambling for bodies.
Somewhat jesting, but perhaps Bezos and Amazon could pitch in a bit, they seem to have a handle on the whole shipping business.