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Florida is famous for its oranges, but Governor Ron DeSantis has recently been busy turning 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 to governors to figure out how to put needles in the arms of as many people as possible.
DeSantis has been harshly criticized for choosing to ignore federal guidelines and prioritize older people over essential workers. County phone banks were inundated with calls, computer systems crashed and long lines of elderly people waited outside immunization centers overnight to receive first-come, first-served injections.
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 received their first shots, and he took advantage of the occasion to denounce communism. And days before that, DeSantis showed up at a Jewish center north of Miami, where he called Holocaust survivors who got their Covid-19 snaps “inspirations for so many.”
That a savvy politician like DeSantis is using the vaccine for political gain with two key Florida electoral blocs is not surprising, said Michael McDonald, 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 before DeSantis could tout the distribution of vaccine doses shows how little help governors get from the federal government at the start of the deployment, experts said.
“Just like they did during the early days of the pandemic, the Trump administration left vaccine distribution to states, and the result is this patchwork approach that we see state-to-state,” Asher said. Hildebrand, professor of public policy at Duke University and former chief of staff to Representative David Price, DN.C. “We must not let the governors get away with it, but it is very difficult to manage a massive distribution effort that balances efficiency and fairness.”
Aubrey Jewett, associate professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said DeSantis’ decision to vaccinate the elderly and his recent appearances with Cuban and Jewish voters were made in preparation for the election of the next year, while he hopes to gain a second. term.
“Second, he is trying to garner positive publicity for his administration in the fight against Covid-19 in order to thwart some of the criticism he has faced for not taking the health risk more seriously and overseeing a chaotic system where de many seniors have had difficulty getting a vaccine, ”Jewett said.
The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the vaccination efforts.
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As of Tuesday, Florida administered 2.6 million doses of the vaccine, a rate of 12,141 per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine tracking system. In contrast, West Virginia has the nation’s highest coronavirus vaccination rate, at 18,045 per 100,000 population.
Philip J. Palin, one of the world’s leading experts on disaster survivor supplies, said West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican who won his office as Democrat and then returned to the GOP, used resources already available in the state. to vaccinate more residents.
“Some states have been much better than others at tapping into their pre-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 population but much smaller than Florida, and it was able to exploit its “community pharmacies and pre-existing black lung programs” to phase out vaccines, Palin said.
In Washington, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee has also tapped into local resources, although in this case the resources are Microsoft and Starbucks, which help with logistics and technology.
“We are removing as many barriers as possible to vaccinating Washingtonians. We will deliver every dose that comes into our state,” Inslee said. “We’ll still be dependent on the federal government for doses, but we’re doing all we can once he’s here.”
Hildebrand said contacting Starbucks and Microsoft “shows the resourcefulness 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 achieve this,” he said.
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States like West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico and Alaska are off to a good start administering doses of the vaccine, while states like Iowa and Missouri have fallen behind, Hildebrand said. .
“But the reasons for this go beyond leadership and what works in West Virginia won’t necessarily work in New York or Florida,” he said via email.
None of this happens in a vacuum, Hildebrand said. Each governor must operate within the framework of the specific and sometimes heavy laws of his states. And governors who have handled previous crises are in a better position to respond effectively to this one.
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina “has spent most of that first term responding to hurricanes, which has helped him manage the current crisis calmly and competently,” Hildebrand said.
Problems with vaccine distribution have also damaged the reputations of governors like Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a popular Republican in a majority Democratic state who prides himself on being an adept manager – and who has received bipartisan praise for his response to the pandemic. .
Among other things, Baker was slow to realize that seniors had difficulty navigating the state’s website, and he belatedly opened a 500-person call center to help them make appointments. you for the vaccination, the Boston Globe reported.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats in states hit hard by the pandemic, have also been troubled by distribution issues. At one point, Cuomo pitched the idea of buying doses of the vaccine directly from Pfizer after complaining that the Trump administration had not provided enough doses to his state.
“It’s easy to beat Governor Cuomo or Governor Newsom for insisting on prioritizing first responders and then stepping back to include other groups after realizing that sticking to strict categories slows down distribution.” , Hildebrand said. “But in both cases, the lessons learned speak to the challenges of managing an effort of this magnitude (and, in particular, the difficulty of balancing effective distribution with equitable distribution).”
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