4 ms·

The Story of VaccinateCA

28 points by mhb 4y ago

dctoedt 4y ago
Hard to believe this story has gotten as little attention on HN as it has. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worksinprogress.co%2Fissue%2Fthe-story-of-vaccinateca%2F&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> We also benefited from another major strength of America: You cannot get arrested, jailed, or shot for publishing true facts, even if those facts happen to embarrass people in positions of power. Many funders wanted us to expand the model to a particular nation. In early talks with contacts there in civil society, it was explained repeatedly and at length that a local team that embarrassed the government’s vaccination rollout would be arrested and beaten by people carrying guns. This made it ethically challenging to take charitable donations and try to recruit that team.
barry-cotter 4y ago
> The unofficial strategy, the result the system actually obtained, was that early access to the vaccine was preferentially awarded based on proximity to power and to the professional-managerial class. … > Teachers’ unions worked tirelessly and landed teachers a 1B. They were ahead of 1C, which included (among others) non-elderly people for whom preexisting severe disability meant that ‘a covid-19 infection is likely to result in severe life-threatening illness or death’. The public rationale was that teachers were at elevated risk of exposure through their occupation. Schools were, of course, mostly closed at the time, and teachers were Zooming along with the rest of the professional-managerial class, but teachers’ unions have power and so 1B it was. Young, healthy teachers quarantining at home were offered the vaccine before people who doctors thought would probably die if they caught Covid.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  That wasn't the public rationale. The public wanted schools open as soon as possible. Vaccinating teachers was supposed to help make that happen. Soon after teachers got vaccinated, my local school district in California allowed in-person school for parents who wanted it.
- tdeck 4y ago
  I know many grad students at UC Berkeley who got the vaccine early because of this. If you're a grad student you /might/ be teaching classes, so apparently that meant anyone with a grad student ID (even a master's ID) could schedule a vaccine appointment before April. Most of these people weren't particularly at risk and were doing research from home.

28 points by mhb 4y ago

Hard to believe this story has gotten as little attention on HN as it has. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.worksinprogress.co%2Fissue%2Fthe-story-of-vaccinateca%2F&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> We also benefited from another major strength of America: You cannot get arrested, jailed, or shot for publishing true facts, even if those facts happen to embarrass people in positions of power. Many funders wanted us to expand the model to a particular nation. In early talks with contacts there in civil society, it was explained repeatedly and at length that a local team that embarrassed the government’s vaccination rollout would be arrested and beaten by people carrying guns. This made it ethically challenging to take charitable donations and try to recruit that team.

barry-cotter 4y ago

> The unofficial strategy, the result the system actually obtained, was that early access to the vaccine was preferentially awarded based on proximity to power and to the professional-managerial class. … > Teachers’ unions worked tirelessly and landed teachers a 1B. They were ahead of 1C, which included (among others) non-elderly people for whom preexisting severe disability meant that ‘a covid-19 infection is likely to result in severe life-threatening illness or death’. The public rationale was that teachers were at elevated risk of exposure through their occupation. Schools were, of course, mostly closed at the time, and teachers were Zooming along with the rest of the professional-managerial class, but teachers’ unions have power and so 1B it was. Young, healthy teachers quarantining at home were offered the vaccine before people who doctors thought would probably die if they caught Covid.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
That wasn't the public rationale. The public wanted schools open as soon as possible. Vaccinating teachers was supposed to help make that happen. Soon after teachers got vaccinated, my local school district in California allowed in-person school for parents who wanted it.
tdeck 4y ago
I know many grad students at UC Berkeley who got the vaccine early because of this. If you're a grad student you /might/ be teaching classes, so apparently that meant anyone with a grad student ID (even a master's ID) could schedule a vaccine appointment before April. Most of these people weren't particularly at risk and were doing research from home.