So much for following the science …
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Welp, it looks like Biden’s goal of 70% adults getting 1st shots by July 4 isn’t the slam dunk that it initially seemed.
With about a month to go, almost 12 million adults over 18 still have to get 1st shots to hit the target.
That works out to about 500,000 first shots per day … roughly the recent 7-day moving average of 1st shots … a number that has been declining and is being buoyed by teenagers (who don’t count against Biden’s target).
Recognizing that the goal is in jeopardy, Team Biden has thrown its weight behind a new program.
Last week, Biden announced “Shots at the Shop” an initiative bringing together 1,000 Black-owned barbershops and beauty salons across the nation to serve as vaccination locations … leveraging the trust and significance they have in Black communities. Source
OK, I understand the need to deliver healthcare to underserved communities … and to use credible messengers.
But, this program raises some obvious questions…
(1) Do we really want barbers and hair stylists to be dishing out medical advice?
They’re probably as spot-on as, say, Dr. Fauci … but still, is that a precedent that Biden wants to establish?
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(2) Is it a good idea to have groups of unvaccinated people converging on barbershops to seek counsel … and maybe get vaccinated?
Program proponents say: “You don’t have to be tethered to a hospital”
Hmm.
I don’t know about your’s, but my barbershop is small-spaced, indoors and not-to-be confused with a sterile operating room.
Bluntly, I avoided my barbershop like the plague during covid until I got fully vaccinated.
If I knew that it was a hang-out for the unvaxed, I would have continued my avoidance.
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(3) When did the vaccines suddenly become easy to store, easy to prepare and easy to administer?
Up to now, we’ve been told that (a) the vaccines need to be kept frozen at sub-zero temperatures (b) need a couple of hours of medically precise preparation (c) must be administered within a few hours after being thawed.
I started to wonder how it was possible for small, low volume retail pharmacies to to handle the constraints.
A medically-attuned friend advised me that (a) shipment batch sizes were reduced from about 1,000 doses to about 100. (b) some pharmacies already have deep freezers … others can get them for about $2,500 each (probably with some gov’t subsidies offsetting that amount) (c) pharmacists are well-able to safely perform the thaw and shoot process.
That’s pharmacies (and pharmacists), but it still begs the question …
Barbershops and barbers?
Excuse my skepticism, but this program just doesn’t sound very scientific to me.
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P.S. Some of the above vaccine storage & prep constraints are less limiting with the up-to-now problematic J&J vaccine.
But, that opens a bigger can of worms that we’ll address in a future post.…
The Homa Files 