Just do it already

Monday, Feb 8, 2021

* Joe Mahr and Angie Leventis Lourgos at the Tribune…

The Tribune spoke to more than a dozen health officials, researchers, doctors and families, and analyzed federal, state and local datasets to try to assess a system that’s considered key to ending the pandemic but, so far, has attracted widespread frustration.

As of Friday, roughly 960,000 Illinoisans have received at least one shot — and about 270,000 of them have received both shots. But the state’s pace has ranked in the bottom third of the country for residents vaccinated, when adjusted for population sizes.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration has pointed to different metrics to argue the state is doing relatively well at vaccinating people, particularly recently. And echoing other states’ complaints, Illinois officials have blamed rollout frustrations on scarce supplies and poor planning by the Trump administration. […]

Still, Illinois’ lagging vaccination numbers have become political fodder in the national finger-pointing over the slow rollout. At that same congressional hearing, a West Virginia Republican noted Illinois had used up less than 60% of vaccine it had received, compared with his home state, which had used up more than 80% by then.

Gov. Pritzker promised to actually run the government, unlike several of his predecessors. The state, therefore, deserves the best possible response without excuses. The article points out numerous problems, with one being that the state appeared to get a late start, then abandoned its management plan.

* Meanwhile…

The coronavirus variant that shut down much of the United Kingdom is spreading rapidly across the United States, outcompeting other strains and doubling its prevalence among confirmed infections every week and a half, according to new research made public Sunday. […]

The spread of the variant, officially known as B.1.1.7, and the threat of other mutant strains of the virus, have added urgency to the effort to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

I completely understand about the international shortage and the national problems since the vaccine was approved. I think most of us are willing to cut everyone some slack. And, yes, there are some local public health agencies which aren’t holding up their end and the big pharmacy companies appear to have bungled the nursing home vaccination program.

But I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care what the governor has to do, this needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed right freaking now. I hate it that other states are doing better than us, even though that’s admittedly a silly metric. We definitely need a better national plan, but until that happens, Illinois has got to up its game.

Governors own.

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