Florida is known for its oranges, but recently, Governor Ron DeSantis has been making his lemon from a Covid-19 vaccine distribution plan in lemonade.
The first few weeks of vaccination in December were chaotic across the country after the Trump administration essentially left it to governors to figure out how to get needles into the arms of as many people as possible.
DeSantis has been widely criticized for choosing to ignore federal guidelines and favor senior citizens over essential workers. Telephone banks in the province were flooded with calls, computer systems crashed and long queues of elderly people waited outside vaccination centers overnight for first-time shots.
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 used the opportunity to crack down on communism. And a few days before that, DeSantis arrives in a Jewish center north of Miami, where he calls the Holocaust survivors who received their Covid-19 shots “inspiration for so many people.”
That an expert politician like DeSantis would use the vaccine for political gain with two major polls in Florida is no surprise, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. “This is what politicians do,” he said.
The fact that it took more than a month before DeSantis could lead the distribution of vaccine doses speaks to how little help governors received early from the federal government, experts said.
“Just like 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 quilt we see from state to state,” said Asher Hildebrand, a professor of public relations. policy at Duke University and former chief of staff for Representative David Price, DN.C. “We should not bring the governors down, but it is very difficult to balance a large distribution effort that balances efficiency with equity.”
Aubrey Jewett, an associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said DeSantis’ decision to vaccinate seniors and his recent appearance with Cuban and Jewish voters were ahead of next year’s election, when he hopes to to win a second time. term.
“Second, he is seeking positive publicity for his administration in the fight against Covid-19 site for the criticism he has faced for not taking the health risk more seriously, and for overseeing a chaotic system. where many seniors are having trouble getting a vaccine, ‘Jewett said.
The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on vaccination efforts.
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According to the Tuesday, Florida administered 2.6 million doses of vaccine, a rate of 12,141 per 100,000 people, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In contrast, West Virginia has the country’s highest coronavirus vaccination rate at 18,045 per 100,000 people.
Philip J. Palin, one of the world’s best experts in obtaining supplies for disaster survivors, said the government of West Virginia, Jim Justice, a Republican who won the office as a Democrat and then switched back to the GOP have, use resources that were already available in the state. to vaccinate more residents.
“Some states have been much better than others at leveraging their existing assets,” said Palin, a veteran government consultant 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 was able to succeed in using a “community pharmacy and existing black lung programs” to give it a chance, Palin said.
In Washington, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee also used local resources, though the resources are Microsoft and Starbucks, which help 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,” Inslee said. “We will still be dose dependent on the federal government, but we will do everything we can once it is here.”
Hildebrand said the release of Starbucks and Microsoft ” ingenuity and creative use of available resources’.
“But it is also an accusation of the federal government’s response that governors should rely on the private sector to do so,” he said.
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States like West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico and Alaska got off to a good start with vaccines, while states like Iowa and Missouri lagged behind, Hildebrand said.
“But the reasons for that go beyond leadership and what works in West Virginia will not necessarily work in New York or Florida,” he said in an email.
None of this happens in a vacuum, Hildebrand said. Each governor must function within the specific and sometimes cumbersome laws of their states. Governors who have managed previous crises are in a better position to respond effectively to this.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina “responded to hurricanes for most of this first term, helping him manage the current crisis calmly and effectively,” Hildebrand said.
Problems with the distribution of vaccines also have the reputation of governors such as Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a popular Republican in an overwhelming Democratic state, who boasts of being a capable administrator – and who has received double praise for his pandemic response , swung down.
Among other things, Baker was slow to realize that the elderly were struggling to navigate the state’s website, and he opened a 500 – call center too late to help them get vaccinated, reports The Boston Globe.
The Government of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and the Government of California, Gavin Newsom, both Democrats in states hard hit by the pandemic, have also been deceived by distribution issues. At one point, Cuomo pushed the idea of buying vaccine doses directly from Pfizer, after he complained that the Trump administration had not delivered enough doses to his state.
“It’s easy to defeat the Cuomo government or the Newsom government because they insisted on prioritizing first responders and then having the backbone to include other groups after realizing that distribution was slowing down by joining strict categories. stay, “said Hildebrand. “But in both cases, the learned lessons address the challenges of managing an effort of this scale (and especially the difficulty of balancing efficient distribution with equitable distribution).”