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commentary Can Americans follow their own vaccine rules?

Some people want it bad – so bad that they’re hovering in the supermarket aisle closest to the pharmacy, pretending to contemplate an array of childfriendly shampoos but actually awaiting the late-in-the-day announcement of leftover, soonto-spoil doses of novel coronavirus vaccine.

Some people don’t want it at all, not because they don’t believe it works but because they don’t believe they deserve it when so many others remain vulnerable.

Those of us who don’t have vaccine envy have vaccine shame. But can we really tell what’s wrong from what’s right amid the mad rush for distribution? From the moment this deus ex medicina appeared on the horizon, the arguments began. Everyone from doctors to bureaucrats to mere armchair ethicists had something to say

Molly Roberts about who ought to go first and who ought to go last. There was, of course, the question of where to position those most likely to become gravely ill relative to those most likely to be exposed. There was the age 75 vs. age 65 debate.

There was even the matter of whether at a certain point some adults, say age 35, should have priority over slightly older adults because the younger have more life to live – and therefore, more life to lose.

And this: Should we pay hesitant people to get jabbed? Wait, no, should we auction off doses to the wealthy and use the proceeds to make more vaccine, or even beef up the stimulus package?

These types of conundrums have always been popular in freshman-year college seminars, where eager students engage in philosophical toe-dipping. Suddenly, we could bring those musings out of the classroom and into the world and everyone could participate. Or so we thought.

The first month of mass inoculations has been a mess, and the months to come don’t look a lot better. Health care workers are so busy taking care of Covid-19 patients, there haven’t been enough people to give shots to the doctors and the nurses who most need it.

Even when they know where to go and when, some seniors have struggled to make appointments and keep them, which has slowed the administration of the vaccine in the next eligible swath.

Sometimes there’s a problem with supply, meaning not enough of it. Sometimes there’s a problem with demand, meaning not enough of that, either. Sometimes there’s a problem matching the two up.

The last explains those grocery store lurkers, hiding out among the granola bars and instant oatmeal and hoping for the loudspeakers to blare out their salvation. Sit too long at room temperature, and doses are rendered useless.

Maybe the lurking is evil. Or maybe it’s a service. Better that a 20-something snatch up a dose than no one does. At least the lucky fellow is helping build herd immunity and (we hope) stopping the spread of any disease that he’d otherwise carry to the older and weaker among us.

Certainly, there’s a difference between accepting what you’re offered and furtively seeking it out. But where’s the dividing line? Should you, for example, travel to a community clinic in the next county over because officials there have OK’d a wider pool of eligibility?

The category-making conducted by those in charge to mete out this manna as morally as possible has occasionally produced an utterly immoral outcome. New York’s restrictive rules initially resulted not in the careful, considered rollout with all equities balanced that its planners imagined, but instead in the widespread waste of lifesaving medicine because the shots were too widely available for too narrow a group of authorized first recipients.

Our own efforts to be selfless can have the same unintended effects: Perhaps it’s even irresponsible to refuse a dose when you do qualify, imagining what would have ended up in your arm will end up in the trash. Sometimes our supposed selfishness can end up doing the most for society.

Our rules about who gets the vaccine in what order allow us to say, in an unfair age, what we think is fair – and try to bring that into being.

Except we can’t. Some of us refuse to wait. Others just wait too long. As we work to save ourselves, we are learning that the best we can do sometimes isn’t good enough.

Molly Roberts writes about technology and society for The Washington Post’s Opinions section.

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the commuter

Why did the turkeys cross the road?

Acolleague of mine This is not the first time had to wait on cross- this commuter has encouning foot traffic to tered animals out of their complete his job-spe- normal habitats – the turkeys, cific commute down Texas not Corsello. Street the other day. While “day-dreaming” my

Well, actually, it was way through a Williams City crossing shank traffic that Council meeting one night a delayed his travels. young male mountain lion Two fairly sizeable turkeys have made the downtown area Todd R. Hansen came strolling down E Street – the main drag of the of Fairfield part of their range in town. Not a typical sight to be sure. recent weeks. They appear to be A Colusa woman actually had a from a farm – at least that is my mountain lion jump through her guess – as they show no signs of apartment window and cross over fear of humans. her while she was sleeping, an

Part of their newly acquired episode caught partially on video. So territory includes the Solano County you can look it up. government center, where I encoun- Others in recent memory also tered them as I left the building after include a baby bear being found near a recent Parks and Recreation the Catholic Church in Colusa, and Commission meeting. deer have found their way into more

Sometimes commuters must than a few towns over the years, and hoof it. several have been seen grazing on

If you don’t believe me, ask my neighbor’s lawn. County Administrator Birgitta I once held up traffic as a pair of Corsello. She was walking a few bison stood guard on a rural highway, yards ahead of me, but she is a bird and bursts of blaring horns did little of a different feather who really has to move their horns or tails. no apparent use for the scavenger But the most terrifying of my birds of the press – well, at least personal encounters took place at this old buzzard. a Dixieland Jazz Jubilee in Old S

We writer-types, however, acramento. understand straight answers are The Sacramento Traditional Jazz often more readily found on Society sure knew how to put on a back roads. party, and the bands came from all over the world.

It was in my younger days – though I was accused of being an old bird back then, too – and I had taken a few days off to enjoy the jubilee’s music, food and beverages as I did almost every Memorial Day weekend for nearly the full run of the jubilee – now the Sacramento Music Festival.

The Band of the Golden West – or more accurately, one of its smaller ensembles – often performed at the jubilee, jazzing up military-style pieces to fit the spirit of the event. Talent has no bounds.

It was after a spirited stop in the alleyway pub, the Back Door Lounge, that I made my way back toward a music venue only to encounter a pink elephant.

No, seriously.

The jubilee had apparently hired a number of young folk to dress up in a variety of animal suits, and someone thought it funny to include a pink elephant among those characters mingling among the beveraged characters.

I nearly fell off my shanks, and nearly climbed onto the wagon.

Todd R. Hansen is a reporter and editor with the Daily Republic. Reach him at thansen@ dailyrepublic.net.

caLmatters commentary California employment takes a downturn

Another day and still with the stay-at-home order another maneuver in Newsom issued after infecCalifornia’s erratic tions surged during management of the the holidays. Covid-19 pandemic. In the past year, since the

On Monday, officials lifted novel coronavirus reared its California’s most recent ugly head, employment in stay-at-home order, giving California has declined by businesses – small businesses 1.5 million and a third of mostly – and their employees permission to take a couple of Dan Walters those jobless workers have given up looking for employbaby steps toward reopening profit- ment and dropped out of the labor able operations. force. Nearly 1 million are collecting

It’s not a moment too soon. federal and state unemployment

Employers and employees alike insurance benefits. have suffered mightily as Gov. Gavin “Unfortunately, California’s job Newsom periodically imposed and losses in December were not unexthen lifted restrictions in hopes of, as pected,” Taner Osman, research he puts it, “bending the curve” on manager at Beacon Economics, said infections. “We have seen some in an analysis of the data. “As the flattening of the curve but we are not spread of Covid-19 was rampant in out of the woods yet,” Newsom said the state’s major population centers, Monday. business closures to contain the

It’s not certain that his decrees spread of the virus also came at the have worked, given the most recent cost of jobs. The situation is unlikely surge in Covid-19 cases, hospitaliza- to improve much in January, tions and deaths, but it is certain that although, for the first time, there is they have had devastating economic some real hope, with the roll-out of impacts, as the newest report on vaccines, that the labor market can employment underscores. pick up real momentum in the

The state Employment Develop- spring.” ment Department reported last week The latest data also underscore that California’s unemployment rate, the worrisome fact that the state’s which had been slowly declining economic decline over the past year since hitting a peak of 16.8% last has fallen disproportionately on spring, spiked upward to 9% in certain economic sectors and their December, one of the nation’s largely low-income workforces. highest. While the “professional and

December saw California lose business services” sector gained 52,200 jobs, more than a third of the 29,600 jobs last month, employers in national job loss, in a sharp reversal “leisure and hospitality” operations of what had been a moderately erased 117,000 jobs and the “other positive trend. The losses coincided services” category, including hairdressers, barbers and nail salons, lost 11,000 jobs.

Even without the stay-at-home order, the vast majority of Californians are still living in counties with relatively tight restrictions that depress business activity. For instance, while restaurants can return to outdoor dining – in the middle of winter – they still cannot serve customers inside.

Newsom and other officials say the key to fully lifting restrictions is “herd immunity” that will be reached only when a high percentage of Californians are vaccinated. That, in turn, depends both on having adequate supplies of vaccine and quickly administering it – a feat that so far has proven elusive.

California has one of the nation’s lowest rates of using the vaccine supplies it has received. Currently, California is vaccinating about 130,000 people a day, but at that rate it would take almost a year to inoculate all 40 million Californians.

Feeling the pressure to speed up vaccinations, the state has now created a centralized registration and reservation system called “My Turn,” that Newsom promises will bring better results. Perhaps so, but he doesn’t have a good managerial track record so far.

CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

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