Watching this Covid vaccine rollout is among one of the most frustrating and annoying things I have seen in a long time.
I heard someone say this week that the best minds in the world came together—at lighting speed—to invent these vaccines. Now, we can’t get them to the people. We can’t even get them registered.
I’m watching Florida and Tampa Bay the most because that’s where I am. On the day registration for the vaccine began, phone lines went down. Web sites crashed. Officials asked for patience.
Patience. That’s all well and good, but didn’t they see this coming?
The vaccines were on the way. They knew that. They knew many people would try to sign up on the first day. Why weren’t they ready?
What makes this worse is who it is affecting: seniors. The first slated to get it are those most vulnerable.
In the City of Fort Myers, Lee County advertised no appointment needed for the vaccine. CNN reports hundreds lined up for shots. They camped out overnight. Is this any way to do this?
Part of the problem, I think, is that Florida is leaving how to handle distribution up to each county. Every plan is different. There is much confusion. So much so that we are running a ticker at the bottom of our screen on Fox 13 explaining how to register for the vaccine in each county.
Maybe there is some relief on the way. The Publix grocery store chain will start giving the vaccine in some of its Florida stores. If Publix can’t do it, nobody can.
This is all happening as we continue to see some frightening Covid infection rates. The Florida positivity rate is over 12%. That’s more than double the number of where we need to be. Five percent.
Getting the vaccine into the arms of those who need it will go a long way towards getting these numbers down. I had high hopes that it would happen fast. It turns out, the shot in the arm is a shot in the dark.