51 Pieces

Virtually everyone agrees that senior citizens are the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Current data puts mortality for those over 80 who get the virus at about 5 - 6 percent, meaning there's a 94% probability of surviving the illness, but that's still cause for concern. It's also a key driver for getting seniors vaccinated ASAP.

In my state of FL, vaccinations of seniors have begun, and tens of thousands of appointment s have already been arranged with more coming on a daily basis. On-line signups require a name, an email address (so an appointment can be arranged) a telephone number, age, and an address. But FL is a red state governed by a competent governor who is not a catastrophist. He has the wisdom to allow local control, as hundreds of websites, organized and administered by local hospitals and county governments have been set up to handle appointments. I went on-line and got mine yesterday.

In NY, few senior vaccinations have occurred. It's been reported that Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration requires a multistep verification process for sign-ups, requiring answers to a lengthy questionnaire with as many as 51 entries. In additional, the senior must upload an image of his or her insurance card. That requirement will be daunting for many 65-plus year olds, who may struggle with translating a physical card into a digital image and then uploading the same. 

Even worse, Cuomo has instituted a statewide set of requirements that dictate who can get the vaccination and when, assigning penalties to any provide who violates them. They have been rescinded after public outcry. The New York Times reports:

Across New York State, medical providers in recent weeks had the same story: They had been forced to throw out precious vaccine doses because of difficulties finding patients who matched precisely with the state’s strict vaccination guidelines — and the steep penalties they would face had they made a mistake.

On Saturday, state health officials responded to the outcry over discarded vaccines by again abruptly loosening guidelines as coronavirus cases continued to rise.

NY is a blue state. Big government bureaucracy, centralized control, and red tape rule. People just might want to take a step back and ask whether the approach adopted by NY for a simple shot might well be a harbinger of the approach taken for all medical care under blue governance at a federal level. After all, government run health care is cheap, efficient, and fair, except when it isn't.

It's also rather amusing to note that the many Democrats suggest that supplying one piece of physical identification for voter ID is somehow too hard for certain groups. Yet, they were perfectly willing to have at-risk seniors supply 51 pieces of digital information to get a shot.