White evangelicals are the least likely faith group in US to get COVID vaccine: Pew

I watch the weekly YouTube special by The Spectator. It’s the worlds longest, continuing running news magazine, based in London. They’re on the right, but not rigidly so. Their news focus is usually on Europe. Britain has really done a fantastic job with its vaccine roll-out. The best in Europe. They’ve had their own issues getting immigrants from the old Eastern bloc to get the vaccine, as well as minorities. People from the former Eastern bloc are understandably not keen to trust the government programs (“trust us, it’ll work!”), and they have had their own issues with minorities. See, for example, this excerpt from a recent program as they discuss this very issue in the UK.

Keep in mind, regarding strictness of lockdowns, that the EU is lagging badly behind the U.S., U.K., and Israel in vaccine rollouts. Any honest appraisal of the Trump administration ought to admit that Trump beat the snot out of ordinary vaccine rollout expectations.

[Bert Perry]

Keep in mind, regarding strictness of lockdowns, that the EU is lagging badly behind the U.S., U.K., and Israel in vaccine rollouts. Any honest appraisal of the Trump administration ought to admit that Trump beat the snot out of ordinary vaccine rollout expectations.

It’s even more interesting to me that in SD, you know, the state that supposedly doesn’t care about its citizens, they are in the top-5 U.S. states for vaccine rollout. It’s amazing how much on the side that supposedly “hates” more, things are actually getting done. That doesn’t mean I think Trump handled the whole Covid mess as well as he could have, but it’s nowhere near as bad as is being painted by those who oppose(d) him.

My take on why SD is doing so well—as well as the UK—is that both have jettisoned a lot of the bureaucracy that afflicts Democrat-run states and the EU. Instead of having a ton of project managers in the state capital arguing all day about who gets it first, you simply have the vaccines delivered directly to providers with a list of criteria for eligibility, and let them handle it. I know my provider, Mayo, was real quick to offer the Lilly therapy to me when I was diagnosed with COVID, and absent government regulations, I anticipate getting notified when they’re ready with “my” vaccine, too.

I’m told that Israel has a lot of that same thing going.

The UK’s National Health Service is running the vaccine program, which is about as bureaucraticized as one can get. This is one example of centralized planning done well.

Yes, the NHS is a bureaucracy, but Brexit removed the EU bureaucracy from the mix, which is why the EU is way behind. England has a tradition of the “good” bureaucrat, and one of the big reasons they canned the EU was that their citizens were used to that “good” bureaucrat who actually got things done, and then got ticked at the “Brussels Swamp” bureaucrat that just interfered.

I am not defending anyone, it was a bungled mess all around. I have said from the beginning that a more targeted approach that protected the vulnerable while keeping as much of society moving forward would have been a better approach. Unfortunately that is all hindsight. The other complexity that you have in the US is the Federal vs. State that a lot of countries don’t need to deal with. That has probably created more confusion than anything.

I give kuddos to Trump for driving the vaccine forward. I give him only partial. Why? Because in the end the private sector was actually moving faster than Trump, although there is no doubt that Trump’s movements helped it along considerably. What I don’t give kuddos to, is that we could have done a much much better job at distribution. I for one do not understand why we didn’t just start making 300 million doses in August. The risk would have been that we might have had to throw out billions of dollars worth of doses, but that was a risk that could have been mitigated with funding from the US government. Second, I don’t know why we didn’t just spend the last 6 months in training the national guard on how to inject people (it is very easy), setup distribution sites throughout all the major cities staffed by National Guard, and build a single registration site with local pharmacies for the rest of the nation. Have the does distributed before January 1st and innoculate everyone in the first 60 days.

Are we doing better than many nations? Sure. Not as good as Israel, but better than most. But being the greatest nation on the planet, I think we could have done much much better. I won’t complain, because to be honest we are doing way better than Canada in the distribution of this.

[dgszweda]

I won’t complain, because to be honest we are doing way better than Canada in the distribution of this.

To be better than Tru-dope is hardly something to brag about. He doesn’t even rise to the proverbial stopped clock level of competence.

[Don Johnson]

dgszweda wrote:

I won’t complain, because to be honest we are doing way better than Canada in the distribution of this.

To be better than Tru-dope is hardly something to brag about. He doesn’t even rise to the proverbial stopped clock level of competence.

Yep, my family is always complaining. They aren’t even sure when they will start seeing the vaccine.