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I got vaccinated at one of these West Oakland "first come, first serve" vaccination sites back in March. They were administering J&J vaccines (which do not thaw

I got vaccinated at one of these West Oakland "first come, first serve" vaccination sites back in March. They were administering J&J vaccines (which do not thaw) with no residency check, and not even a poster saying "please don't line up unless you live in this neighborhood." No statement of intent at all. Others standing in line asked coordinators walking the line, "Am I eligible here?" and the coordinators responded, without hesitation, "Yes, you're in the right place! Stay in line." No questions asked. The vaccination site may well have been "intended" for West Oakland residents and/or underprivileged folks, but if that's right, they could have at least put up a sign saying so, and maybe the coordinator(s) could have said "this vaccine is intended for West Oakland residents only." I think there's an argument to be made that everyone in line who didn't live in West Oakland should have just assumed that the vaccine wasn't intended for them, but I strongly believe that the ethics of the situation are "If you're offered a vaccine, take it." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/covid-vaccine-ethics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/covid-vaccine-eth... It's not just for you; it's for everyone around you, especially children and others who can't be vaccinated.

tdeck 5y ago
I'm not making a judgment on this situation, but as someone who lives in Alameda County (where Oakland is) and tried hard to get a vaccine as early as I ethically could, I can definitely confirm that this rollout was very confusing. The county and my city (Berkeley) kept on saying it wouldn't be available to the general public until the 15th. Then they changed the eligibility on the 10th, but with zero fanfare and without all of the websites being updated. I believe MyTurn wasn't even updated for a while. I was checking periodically and only happened to notice on the 11th. I also heard about these "certain ZIP code" vaccination centers and assumed that they probably weren't "for" me (not my ZIP code), but there wasn't much clarity. I understand why the county probably did some of these things: they want to make the vaccine available to underserved communities without asking for documents that are typically a barrier for members of those same communities. They want to make it easy to get a vaccine, but not talk about it too much so people don't flood in from other areas. But it does leave you in a weird quandry when you want to do your part and line up when the time comes to get vaccinated, and the question of "is it time yet" isn't exactly clear. In my case I didn't get the shot until the 16th, but I'm so glad I got it at all.
BombNullIsland 5y ago
The site is intended to vaccinate the population as quickly as possible. Ignore the rules, get jabs in every willing arm until there is none left. Vaccines in the fridge or thrown in the bin don't lower R0. The goal of any competent vaccination program should be to get the most socially active population vaccinated as quickly as possible to lower R0. This means 15-35 and retail workers first. That's not what happened anywhere in the west because of gerontocratic politics.
- ianleighton 5y ago
  If your goal is just lowering R0, sure… but a lot of countries prefer to lower deaths, which is why they start with the older population / those with health conditions.
  - BombNullIsland 5y ago
    People with health conditions won't get infected if there is no spread. By all means vaccinate the most vulnerable, but stay at home early retirees aren't exactly superspreaders. The 18-35 cohort after vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine are going from being extremely dangerous asymptomatic spreaders to having high levels of sterilizing immunity.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  After the 60+ people were vaccinated, Denmark started at opposite ends in parallel: from 59 down, and 16 up.
etc-hosts 5y ago
Means Testing is stupid
ping_pong 5y ago
Gotta love the rationalization. In March there was a lot of issues with supply of vaccines and the program was intended to specifically target underprivileged people because COVID is drastically affecting them more than people. But you said to yourself, fuck their rules, I found a news article that justifies me jumping the line. So you hacked the system and jumped the line and got yourself vaccinated ahead of someone who could have gotten their shot that day.
- chris_wot 5y ago
  No offence intended by the following question, but if it’s not made clear who the vaccines are intended for, how can it be “hacking the system”? Hacking the system implies you know the intent but you ignore it and used the system in a way it was not designed.
  - ping_pong 5y ago
    https://archive.is/Z55Oe https://archive.is/Z55Oe
- JoeyBananas 5y ago
  As an outsider, I see no real reason to believe that this guy is not just as deserving of a vaccine as anybody else. It's hard to express how judgmental this post is. Imagine you're browsing HackerNews and you see that there's a controversy. So, you instantly associate one side with "the plight of underprivileged Oakland residents" and the other side with "Greedy bourgeoisie colonizer." Because it's completely obvious who is in the wrong, you proceed to type this comment.
  - mynameisvlad 5y ago
    He isn't as deserving of a vaccine as everyone else at the time. This happened in March, when vaccine supplies were still severely constrained and eligibility was still restricted to those who could be affected by the virus; the elderly and those with comorbidities. Just because this specific site opened up to all in an effort to serve the underprivileged members of the community who couldn't otherwise prove eligibility does not suddenly mean he is the intended audience for the vaccine at the time, nor that he is deserving of the vaccine. People who actually needed the vaccine were the only ones who were deserving of it at the time. Everyone else can wait a month. It's not the end of the world or anything.
throwaaskjdfh 5y ago
EDIT: I was mistaken here, corrected by a response below. - I don't think there was a way for the public health authorities to create an explicit rule about neighborhood residency without inviting lawsuits. The best they could do is place vaccination centers in more convenient locations for underserved communities, and hope that it could raise the rate of vaccination in the vicinity. I think there were people assuming that if it wasn't against the explicit rules to commute there to be vaccinated, it must be OK, even though it might (in the event of limited supply) undermine the effort to raise vaccination rates in that specific area.
- tdeck 5y ago
  To be fair, this is a reasonable assumption based on past experience. The government normally has no shortage of rules - it literally governs us. It's not unreasonable for some people to assume that this is a disorganized or inconsistent rollout rather than a form of social engineering meant to narrow the eligibility guidelines.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  This pretty much summarizes how it was taken advantage of: https://archive.is/Z55Oe https://archive.is/Z55Oe
  - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
    Glad it was "taken advantage of", racism has no place here. Disgusting that people think this is ok.
    - Devon64327 5y ago
      They didn't set up a clinic and stick a "Colored folks only" sign out front. At the county or state level, they looked at the data and identified that Black and Latino populations were not being vaccinated at the same rate as white populations, and also recognized that the pandemic has disproportionately affected those same populations. So they committed resources to establish more clinics in areas with high concentrations of the given populations and may have waived certain documentation requirements that are historically more challenging for them to acquire. The result being that people of means, predominantly white people, took time off of work and travelled long distances to take advantage of the situation. Taking the place of a non-zero number of residents that were the intended recipients.
HWR_14 5y ago
They don't ask for proof of poverty at a food bank either. And "Am I eligible here" could be seen about specifically asking about age/preconditions eligibility. In fact, that whole conversation could have been changed trivially to picking up free food at a food bank and would not have looked out of place. As for "if you're offered a vaccine take it", I don't think that applies to "I can go somewhere to get offered the vaccine." If there was a 4 hour wait, then it's not like they had spares lying around. If you had driven to a rural site where they have to thaw 6 doses for 3 people that would have been a different story.
- avereveard 5y ago
  > If there was a 4 hour wait, then it's not like they had spares lying around Nonsequitur. They migh have been understaffed, or they might not have handed out paperwork beforehand, increasing the time required per person behind what they forecasted.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Everyone knows that food banks are only for the poor. Vaccination sites usually aren't.
- m-ee 5y ago
  They didn’t skirt some eligibility rules because no one asked questions. The west Oakland site first tried reaching out to local low income community members and after seeing low uptake opened it up to everyone one, the pastor of the church himself was encouraging anyone over 18 to come by.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    mbgerring's post further up the chain definitely claims that they exceeded the eligibility rules. Inviting people from outside the prioritized neighborhood to come take shots and there being a 4 hour line implies skirting eligibility rules.
    - m-ee 5y ago

tdeck 5y ago

I'm not making a judgment on this situation, but as someone who lives in Alameda County (where Oakland is) and tried hard to get a vaccine as early as I ethically could, I can definitely confirm that this rollout was very confusing. The county and my city (Berkeley) kept on saying it wouldn't be available to the general public until the 15th. Then they changed the eligibility on the 10th, but with zero fanfare and without all of the websites being updated. I believe MyTurn wasn't even updated for a while. I was checking periodically and only happened to notice on the 11th. I also heard about these "certain ZIP code" vaccination centers and assumed that they probably weren't "for" me (not my ZIP code), but there wasn't much clarity. I understand why the county probably did some of these things: they want to make the vaccine available to underserved communities without asking for documents that are typically a barrier for members of those same communities. They want to make it easy to get a vaccine, but not talk about it too much so people don't flood in from other areas. But it does leave you in a weird quandry when you want to do your part and line up when the time comes to get vaccinated, and the question of "is it time yet" isn't exactly clear. In my case I didn't get the shot until the 16th, but I'm so glad I got it at all.

BombNullIsland 5y ago

The site is intended to vaccinate the population as quickly as possible. Ignore the rules, get jabs in every willing arm until there is none left. Vaccines in the fridge or thrown in the bin don't lower R0. The goal of any competent vaccination program should be to get the most socially active population vaccinated as quickly as possible to lower R0. This means 15-35 and retail workers first. That's not what happened anywhere in the west because of gerontocratic politics.

ianleighton 5y ago
If your goal is just lowering R0, sure… but a lot of countries prefer to lower deaths, which is why they start with the older population / those with health conditions.
- BombNullIsland 5y ago
  People with health conditions won't get infected if there is no spread. By all means vaccinate the most vulnerable, but stay at home early retirees aren't exactly superspreaders. The 18-35 cohort after vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine are going from being extremely dangerous asymptomatic spreaders to having high levels of sterilizing immunity.
Symbiote 5y ago
After the 60+ people were vaccinated, Denmark started at opposite ends in parallel: from 59 down, and 16 up.

etc-hosts 5y ago

Means Testing is stupid

ping_pong 5y ago

Gotta love the rationalization. In March there was a lot of issues with supply of vaccines and the program was intended to specifically target underprivileged people because COVID is drastically affecting them more than people. But you said to yourself, fuck their rules, I found a news article that justifies me jumping the line. So you hacked the system and jumped the line and got yourself vaccinated ahead of someone who could have gotten their shot that day.

chris_wot 5y ago
No offence intended by the following question, but if it’s not made clear who the vaccines are intended for, how can it be “hacking the system”? Hacking the system implies you know the intent but you ignore it and used the system in a way it was not designed.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  https://archive.is/Z55Oe https://archive.is/Z55Oe
JoeyBananas 5y ago
As an outsider, I see no real reason to believe that this guy is not just as deserving of a vaccine as anybody else. It's hard to express how judgmental this post is. Imagine you're browsing HackerNews and you see that there's a controversy. So, you instantly associate one side with "the plight of underprivileged Oakland residents" and the other side with "Greedy bourgeoisie colonizer." Because it's completely obvious who is in the wrong, you proceed to type this comment.
- mynameisvlad 5y ago
  He isn't as deserving of a vaccine as everyone else at the time. This happened in March, when vaccine supplies were still severely constrained and eligibility was still restricted to those who could be affected by the virus; the elderly and those with comorbidities. Just because this specific site opened up to all in an effort to serve the underprivileged members of the community who couldn't otherwise prove eligibility does not suddenly mean he is the intended audience for the vaccine at the time, nor that he is deserving of the vaccine. People who actually needed the vaccine were the only ones who were deserving of it at the time. Everyone else can wait a month. It's not the end of the world or anything.

throwaaskjdfh 5y ago

EDIT: I was mistaken here, corrected by a response below. - I don't think there was a way for the public health authorities to create an explicit rule about neighborhood residency without inviting lawsuits. The best they could do is place vaccination centers in more convenient locations for underserved communities, and hope that it could raise the rate of vaccination in the vicinity. I think there were people assuming that if it wasn't against the explicit rules to commute there to be vaccinated, it must be OK, even though it might (in the event of limited supply) undermine the effort to raise vaccination rates in that specific area.

tdeck 5y ago
To be fair, this is a reasonable assumption based on past experience. The government normally has no shortage of rules - it literally governs us. It's not unreasonable for some people to assume that this is a disorganized or inconsistent rollout rather than a form of social engineering meant to narrow the eligibility guidelines.
ping_pong 5y ago
This pretty much summarizes how it was taken advantage of: https://archive.is/Z55Oe https://archive.is/Z55Oe
- lawnchair_larry 5y ago
  Glad it was "taken advantage of", racism has no place here. Disgusting that people think this is ok.
  - Devon64327 5y ago
    They didn't set up a clinic and stick a "Colored folks only" sign out front. At the county or state level, they looked at the data and identified that Black and Latino populations were not being vaccinated at the same rate as white populations, and also recognized that the pandemic has disproportionately affected those same populations. So they committed resources to establish more clinics in areas with high concentrations of the given populations and may have waived certain documentation requirements that are historically more challenging for them to acquire. The result being that people of means, predominantly white people, took time off of work and travelled long distances to take advantage of the situation. Taking the place of a non-zero number of residents that were the intended recipients.

HWR_14 5y ago

They don't ask for proof of poverty at a food bank either. And "Am I eligible here" could be seen about specifically asking about age/preconditions eligibility. In fact, that whole conversation could have been changed trivially to picking up free food at a food bank and would not have looked out of place. As for "if you're offered a vaccine take it", I don't think that applies to "I can go somewhere to get offered the vaccine." If there was a 4 hour wait, then it's not like they had spares lying around. If you had driven to a rural site where they have to thaw 6 doses for 3 people that would have been a different story.

avereveard 5y ago
> If there was a 4 hour wait, then it's not like they had spares lying around Nonsequitur. They migh have been understaffed, or they might not have handed out paperwork beforehand, increasing the time required per person behind what they forecasted.
anoncake 5y ago
Everyone knows that food banks are only for the poor. Vaccination sites usually aren't.
m-ee 5y ago
They didn’t skirt some eligibility rules because no one asked questions. The west Oakland site first tried reaching out to local low income community members and after seeing low uptake opened it up to everyone one, the pastor of the church himself was encouraging anyone over 18 to come by.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  mbgerring's post further up the chain definitely claims that they exceeded the eligibility rules. Inviting people from outside the prioritized neighborhood to come take shots and there being a 4 hour line implies skirting eligibility rules.
  - m-ee 5y ago