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Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind? The article mentions that he tried vaccinating everyone in the clinic and called the county to ask; I'm

Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind? The article mentions that he tried vaccinating everyone in the clinic and called the county to ask; I'm legitimately unsure what else he could have done to find people.

treis 6y ago
>Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind Go to the nearest grocery store/ Firehouse / police station and give them to front line workers.
- runako 6y ago
  Not sure about in TX, but in my state the list of people he actually vaccinated comes before front line workers. I'm impressed that he was able to find so many head-of-the-line people so quickly. (Further, he made house calls to sick elderly people, which is something sorely missing from our existing vaccination strategy.)
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe? He distributed the vaccine to people that knew him (or were in his social network) in the very limited time he had left. The DA who pursued this should be dis-barred.
  - treis 6y ago
    >That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe? With ID, sure. Besides, he's been the medical director of the Covid response for the county since April. His job was to put procedures to handle situations like this in place.
    - crispyambulance 6y ago
      Do you know what the ID of "the medical director of Covid response since April" looks like? I don't and neither do you or the firemen/police he would approach.
      - treis 6y ago
        It took me 20 seconds of googling to find a picture of the medical director for my county. But that's not really the point. The point is that part of his job was to come up with a plan for these situations. And he settled on give them to my friends and family. That's obviously a poor choice fraught with ethical issues. Like I said, arresting him is not the answer but he is not innocent.
        crispyambulance 6y ago
        So, 20 seconds of googling for an HN user... yields the covid directory for your town. I just did it for philly and I got no picture id. The doctor didn't do anything wrong!
- h_anna_h 6y ago
  If I saw someone in the grocery store claiming to have a covid vaccine and asking people if they want to be vaccinated I would probably call the police. This feels like backseat driving/gaming.
Grustaf 6y ago
Obviously the best alternative is to make sure to vaccinate an even multiple of 10 people before you close. So if you're about to close, just finished a vial and a single person shows up, then don't open a new vial and put yourself in the position where you have to run around and find patients.
- valarauko 6y ago
  That's how the appointments are given out, but not everybody shows up. For my second shot, I drove out 30 miles in a snowstorm, and waited two hours in line. Other people probably waited longer. Should the last couple of people be turned away after waiting 2 hours because there aren't neat multiples of 10 at closing time? Your solution, while reasonable, optimizes vaccinate utilization but at incredible cost to an unfortunate few.
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    For me the main point is really to avoid moral hazard, not saving those 9 doses. It would be worth wasting a few doses here and there if it greatly decreases the level of corruption in the system. But if people waiting for 2 hours is common, then turning away the last ones doesn’t seem like a good solution. If they really wanted to they could of course come up with an efficient, low corruption system but they don’t seem terribly organized in the first place.
    - valarauko 6y ago
      > It would be worth wasting a few doses here and there if it greatly decreases the level of corruption in the system. While reasonable in isolation, I would suggest that this view doesn't account for the extreme scarcity of the vaccine, and the stretched healthcare resources. I mean, while I work 300 feet from our hospital and our vaccine stockpiles, it was quicker to travel to the neighboring county with a lower caseload. As someone who still experienced close to 4 hours standing in line in total & driving over a 100 miles, the situation is pretty dire. Ironically, NY state has been extremely boneheaded in vaccine delivery policy. They didn't allow hospital networks any leniency is how vaccines are administered, but punished them for slow rollout. In the initial two weeks or so, NY state mandated that only COVID ward staff, emergency & delivery staff should be vaccinated. We were done with them in a couple of days, but the state wouldn't allow the rest of medical staff to be vaccinated. It was a ridiculous situation - we had thousands of medical staff waiting & ready to get vaccinated, we had the resources, and we had the vaccine - but the state would not update their policy. By the time they did in mid January, we were already facing the post Christmas & New Year related travel surge in cases and didn't have staff to spare for vaccination. According to me, hospitals/counties should have been allowed to move further down the priority list as and when they had the capacity to do so, rather than requiring the governor to allow it. Instead, we had ridiculous situations like 30% utilization of stocks. > If they really wanted to they could of course come up with an efficient, low corruption system but they don’t seem terribly organized in the first place. Agreed, but what's the options available to the last mile staff, like the nurse who opened the vial, or the doctor in question?

treis 6y ago

>Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind Go to the nearest grocery store/ Firehouse / police station and give them to front line workers.

runako 6y ago
Not sure about in TX, but in my state the list of people he actually vaccinated comes before front line workers. I'm impressed that he was able to find so many head-of-the-line people so quickly. (Further, he made house calls to sick elderly people, which is something sorely missing from our existing vaccination strategy.)
crispyambulance 6y ago
That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe? He distributed the vaccine to people that knew him (or were in his social network) in the very limited time he had left. The DA who pursued this should be dis-barred.
- treis 6y ago
  >That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe? With ID, sure. Besides, he's been the medical director of the Covid response for the county since April. His job was to put procedures to handle situations like this in place.
  - crispyambulance 6y ago
    Do you know what the ID of "the medical director of Covid response since April" looks like? I don't and neither do you or the firemen/police he would approach.
    - treis 6y ago
      It took me 20 seconds of googling to find a picture of the medical director for my county. But that's not really the point. The point is that part of his job was to come up with a plan for these situations. And he settled on give them to my friends and family. That's obviously a poor choice fraught with ethical issues. Like I said, arresting him is not the answer but he is not innocent.
      - crispyambulance 6y ago
        So, 20 seconds of googling for an HN user... yields the covid directory for your town. I just did it for philly and I got no picture id. The doctor didn't do anything wrong!
h_anna_h 6y ago
If I saw someone in the grocery store claiming to have a covid vaccine and asking people if they want to be vaccinated I would probably call the police. This feels like backseat driving/gaming.

Grustaf 6y ago

Obviously the best alternative is to make sure to vaccinate an even multiple of 10 people before you close. So if you're about to close, just finished a vial and a single person shows up, then don't open a new vial and put yourself in the position where you have to run around and find patients.

valarauko 6y ago
That's how the appointments are given out, but not everybody shows up. For my second shot, I drove out 30 miles in a snowstorm, and waited two hours in line. Other people probably waited longer. Should the last couple of people be turned away after waiting 2 hours because there aren't neat multiples of 10 at closing time? Your solution, while reasonable, optimizes vaccinate utilization but at incredible cost to an unfortunate few.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  For me the main point is really to avoid moral hazard, not saving those 9 doses. It would be worth wasting a few doses here and there if it greatly decreases the level of corruption in the system. But if people waiting for 2 hours is common, then turning away the last ones doesn’t seem like a good solution. If they really wanted to they could of course come up with an efficient, low corruption system but they don’t seem terribly organized in the first place.
  - valarauko 6y ago
    > It would be worth wasting a few doses here and there if it greatly decreases the level of corruption in the system. While reasonable in isolation, I would suggest that this view doesn't account for the extreme scarcity of the vaccine, and the stretched healthcare resources. I mean, while I work 300 feet from our hospital and our vaccine stockpiles, it was quicker to travel to the neighboring county with a lower caseload. As someone who still experienced close to 4 hours standing in line in total & driving over a 100 miles, the situation is pretty dire. Ironically, NY state has been extremely boneheaded in vaccine delivery policy. They didn't allow hospital networks any leniency is how vaccines are administered, but punished them for slow rollout. In the initial two weeks or so, NY state mandated that only COVID ward staff, emergency & delivery staff should be vaccinated. We were done with them in a couple of days, but the state wouldn't allow the rest of medical staff to be vaccinated. It was a ridiculous situation - we had thousands of medical staff waiting & ready to get vaccinated, we had the resources, and we had the vaccine - but the state would not update their policy. By the time they did in mid January, we were already facing the post Christmas & New Year related travel surge in cases and didn't have staff to spare for vaccination. According to me, hospitals/counties should have been allowed to move further down the priority list as and when they had the capacity to do so, rather than requiring the governor to allow it. Instead, we had ridiculous situations like 30% utilization of stocks. > If they really wanted to they could of course come up with an efficient, low corruption system but they don’t seem terribly organized in the first place. Agreed, but what's the options available to the last mile staff, like the nurse who opened the vial, or the doctor in question?