The COVID-19 vaccines are the pathway to getting Pennsylvania back to what the state was in February 2020.
Whether the Pfizer or Moderna or forthcoming Johnson & Johnson shot, vaccines are the way to go from a population left wide open to the coronavirus pandemic and a population prepared to face it down.
The problem is getting the vaccine from the manufacturers to the providers and then to the people. While public health leaders knew this would be an extraordinary logistics challenge, they were focused on another issue — people balking at getting the shot. After all, people are warned yearly to get the flu shot, and that falls on a lot of deaf ears. The World Health Organization has openly worried about vaccine hesitancy as a global threat as great as pandemics.
But while some people are still reluctant, more have been clamoring to sign up or line up. There just hasn’t been enough to go around.
It is frustrating because so much would be easier if the vaccines were as available as they are supposed to be. Not the least of those is school.
On Monday, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto called on Gov. Tom Wolf to make vaccinating teachers a next step. That makes sense as teachers being prepared is an important step in getting kids back to a regular, across-the-board, in-person schedule.
This “would help to create a safer environment for students, many of whom have fallen behind academically while attempting to shift to at-home learning; expedite the safe reopening of schools; and alleviate the concerns of teachers who are apprehensive about returning to unsafe conditions,” Peduto wrote.
That’s hard to argue against. Few people would. Kids absolutely will get a better education in the classroom than left to their own (electronic) devices and the assistance of parents who haven’t taken geometry in a long, long time.
Teachers are planned for Phase 1B of the vaccination rollout. Pennsylvania is in Phase 1A. But if that feels like that’s been a while, it’s because it has.
The process hasn’t been moving from phase to phase like negotiating a game piece along a board toward the end goal. It hasn’t been Candy Land, pushing on inexorably with the castle at the end. It has been Chutes and Ladders, randomly sliding backward. Instead of completing a group and moving to the next, more are moved in to Phase 1A.
The state is well-meaning in doing this. More people should be vaccinated. Prioritizing more groups like teachers has legitimate rationale.
But rather than making changes to the phases, the state’s priority has to be making the process work more smoothly. There must be more vaccine available or the state has to be more realistic about its availability. It does no good to push people to get a vaccine if when they try, it isn’t possible. There must be a better, more streamlined process for getting people registered. There must be a more open and efficient process for getting the shots administered.
To Peduto’s credit, he did not just ask for teachers to move up the line without offering something to help. He proposed the use of Pittsburgh’s recreation and senior centers as sites for distributing the vaccine. That’s a good plan.
Now it’s the state’s turn to answer with an equally smart response that actually moves Pennsylvania closer to the end of the game rather than just rolling the dice.
— The Tribune-Review/TNS
