Florida is known for its oranges, but Governor Ron DeSantis has been busy recently converting his lemon from a Covid-19 vaccine distribution plan into lemonade.
The first weeks of the vaccination rollout in December were chaotic across the country after the Trump administration essentially left it up to the governors to figure out how to get needles into the arms of as many people as possible.
DeSantis faced harsh criticism after choosing to override federal guidelines and prioritize seniors over essential employees. County phone banks were inundated with phone calls, computer systems collapsed, and long lines of elderly people waited outside vaccination centers at night on a first-come, first-served basis.
DeSantis was in Miami this month when a trio of Cuban exiles who took part in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion 50 years ago got their first shots, and he took the opportunity to protest against communism. And a few days before that, DeSantis appeared in a Jewish center north of Miami, calling Holocaust survivors who had gotten their Covid-19 shots “inspiration for so many people.”
That a savvy politician like DeSantis would use the vaccine for political gain with two major Florida voting blocks is no surprise, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. “That’s what politicians do,” he said.
But the fact that it took more than a month for DeSantis to be able to promote the distribution of vaccine doses indicates how little help governors received from the federal government early in the rollout, experts said.
“Just as they did during the early days of the pandemic, the Trump administration left the distribution of the vaccines to the states, and the result is this patchwork approach that we see from state to state,” said Asher Hildebrand, a public professor. policy at Duke University and former Chief of Staff to Rep. David Price, DN.C. “We shouldn’t let the governors off the hook, but it’s very difficult to manage a massive distribution effort that balances efficiency and equity.”
Aubrey Jewett, an associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said DeSantis’ decision to vaccinate seniors and his recent appearances with Cuban and Jewish voters were made in view of next year’s election, when he hopes to get a second. to win. term.
Second, he is trying to get positive publicity for his government in the fight against Covid-19 to counter some of the criticism he has received for not taking health risk more seriously and overseeing a chaotic system in which many seniors have experienced difficulties getting a vaccine, ‘Jewett said.
The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment about vaccination efforts.
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According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracker, Florida had administered 2.6 million doses of vaccine since Tuesday, a rate of 12,141 per 100,000 people. West Virginia, on the other hand, has the highest coronavirus vaccination rate in the country, at 18,045 per 100,000 people.
Philip J. Palin, one of the world’s top experts in obtaining supplies to disaster survivors, said West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican who won office as a Democrat and then went back to the GOP, said used those already available in the state to vaccinate more residents.
“Some states are much better than others at exploiting their pre-existing assets,” said Palin, an experienced government adviser and author of “Out of the Whirlwind: Supply and Demand After Hurricane Maria.”
West Virginia has a very vulnerable but much smaller population than Florida, and it has been able to tap into its “community pharmacies and pre-existing black lung programs” to get the photos out, Palin said.
In Washington, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee has also tapped into local resources, although in this case it involves Microsoft and Starbucks, which are helping with logistics and technology.
“We are removing as many barriers as possible to the vaccination of Washingtonians. We are going to deliver every dose that comes into our state,” said Inslee. “We’ll still depend on the federal government for doses, but we’ll do everything we can once it gets here.”
Hildebrand said the contact with Starbucks and Microsoft “demonstrates ingenuity and creative use of available resources.”
“But it is also an indictment of the federal government’s response that governors must rely on the private sector to get this done,” he said.
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States like West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico and Alaska had gotten off to a good start with vaccine doses, while states like Iowa and Missouri were lagging behind, Hildebrand said.
“But the reasons go beyond leadership and what works in West Virginia doesn’t necessarily work in New York or Florida,” he said by email.
None of this happens in a vacuum, Hildebrand said. Each governor must operate within the specific and sometimes burdensome laws of his state. And governors who have faced past crises are in a better position to respond effectively.
North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper “spent most of his first term responding to hurricanes, helping him calmly and competently manage the current crisis,” Hildebrand said.
Problems with vaccine distribution have also tarnished the reputation of governors like Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a popular Republican in a predominantly Democratic state who prides itself on being an adept manager – and who has received bipartisan praise for his pandemic response.
Baker, among other things, was slow to realize that seniors had trouble navigating the state’s website, and he opened a 500-person call center too late to help them make vaccination appointments, The Boston Globe reported.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and California Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats in states badly affected by the pandemic, have also been cheated by distribution issues. At one point, Cuomo came up with the idea of buying vaccine doses directly from Pfizer after complaining that the Trump administration had not delivered enough doses to his state.
“It’s easy to beat Gov. Cuomo or Gov. Newsom for insisting on prioritizing first responders and then having to go back to include other groups after realizing that sticking to strict categories slowed distribution,” said Hildebrand. “But in both cases, the lessons learned speak of the challenges of managing an effort of this magnitude (and in particular the difficulty of balancing efficient distribution with equitable distribution).”