This is the free, Sunday edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing. This is a photo from May 1962, outside a junior high in Denver, as hundreds lined up for the polio vaccine. According to the
Our county is one of the best in Washington State for vaccinations. We just got our jab yesterday, but the big problem is still lack of vaccine. One nearby clinic opened on a first come, first served basis and turned away about a thousand people waiting in line. Yes, the local tribes are involved. The Jamestown, the local machers, as we Jews call them, have been running their own clinic and have opened it to the local non-tribal population, but they were the ones who turned away that thousand. They can do the organizational stuff just fine, as can others, but supplies are the real problem. (There's a county clinic running even now. A friend of ours, a local veterinarian - the other kind of vet, is working there giving injections.)
We are hoping improved supplies make vaccination easier, but mRNA vaccines like the Pfizer and Moderna ones are a totally new technology. Stuff like the protein for encapsulating the RNA and convincing cells to absorb it and use it for making antibody targets were usually ordered by the milligram, but now the demand is for kilograms. I'm rather amazed that we are doing as well as we are. God bless the bioreactor engineers and may no one cheap out on UV lamps fo the emergency/overflow vents. The money that was spent responding to MERS and SARS and seemed to have been wasted when public health measures brought the diseases under control turns out to have been well spent.
Biden is doing what he can. As he himself noted, his original proposal for vaccination was jeered at for being to ambitious. Now it is being jeered at for being insufficient. Maybe with nation-wide coordination, the good guys can get on the case and deal with COVID-19 as it should have been dealt with.
My mother-in-law in England is in a rehabilitation place after surgery. She “got the jab” a few days ago with no effort on her part. I’m sure I’ve said this before on one of your pieces, but she also was born with a disability and has *never seen a medical bill.* The NHS is underfunded and has a lot of flaws but I’d take it and the higher taxes any day. Meanwhile, my parents (divorced) are navigating different systems with different requirements in two different Montana counties while I hear of friends who got it a bit earlier because someone had leftover doses from the 1a batch 🤦🏻♀️
Loved this analysis, so sharp as always! But I really liked the redpilling piece. I don’t know that it said anything new but it said it well (except that, as you probably remember, in the Matrix Reaves’s character didn’t get the name Neo after taking the red pill; it had been his hacker pseudonym). I’ve talked with a teen boy or two who don’t identify as liberal but scoff at the 8/4chan boards, so I wonder where that’s all going.
We're "registered" in NM and waiting. There aren't any technical or bureaucratic hurdles, really. I'm a nerd, besides. I *think* the problem is there's hardly any vaccine because the Trump administration shortchanged states with Democratic governors. Last I heard, the state had received well under 200,000 doses for a population of over 2 million.
I've been "navigating" the shitshow that is our healthcare system for over 26 years as a mother/caregiver for my severely disabled now young-adult daughter. When everyone began talking about the magic pill that was the vaccination, I shook my head. Not in cynicism but in knowledge. Thank you for writing so clearly about this.
A little bit tangential, but you mentioned the devastation of the 1918 flu in some villages in Alaska and the re-routing of last year's Iditarod due to COVID. Part of the origin story of the Iditarod itself is also about an infectious disease. In 1925, the Iditarod Trail, something quite similar to the routes that make up the modern Iditarod race, was used to rush a serum needed to stop a deadly diphtheria outbreak from Anchorage to Nome at a time of year when Nome's harbor was frozen in and it was too cold for planes to fly and the nearest train station was 700 miles away. Teams of mushers and sled dogs carried the medication in a relay setup from that train station to Nome in a little over five days.
Another aspect I've recently dealt with--trying to be a science communications expert and share why my grandparents should get the vaccine. I have a few antivax relatives and they live closer to my grandparents. My grandmother told me this week that because they advised her not to get it, she wouldn't. Misinformation has devastating consequences.
Unlike the "rights" in the Bill of Rights, which are negative rights: the things government is not allowed to do to you, the "right" to health care is a positive one: things others are required to do in order to satisfy your needs.
These are fundamentally different "rights". Who compels others to perform actions to satisfy your needs? On what basis do those who are tasked to do so make their judgements? Do those who are compelled to meet your needs have any recourse if they disagree? Are they paid to perform as you decree? If so, who pays them? Where does the money come from for that?
It's easy enough to make a case for these positive "rights" in the limited contexts of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act or the VA (in the latter of which they aren't really "rights" as such but rather earned privileges based on military service) but extending the concept as a general principle leads to many sticky questions.
It's usual to hear citations of the "successes" of other countries in their government-run health care systems, but the stories are far from universal: complaints about the the NHS in the UK are manifold, for example, and Canadians who can afford to do so flock to the States to get treatments that might only come available to them after their death in Canada.
So I'm quite unconvinced about these "rights" to the fruits of other people's labors.
That 100 million in 100 days was the same plan that the previous admin had. They're just continuing it. And the problem is that it's not fully in the hands of the private sector. Whenever government is involved (either directly or through burdensome regulations), it's ALWAYS more expensive and inefficient. If they simply had a hands off approach and allowed the market to work, it would be much faster. But the pharma companies are hamstrung by all these rules regarding priority...etc. And yes, in a free market system, the ones that can pay the most will get it quicker. But that will also inure to the benefit of the less well off because the distribution to them will happen quicker as a result of the money being made off the higher end.
Imagine if the government was in charge of getting you the food you put on your table every day. It would cost 5X to 10x what you currently pay and your choices would be limited.
Thank you! This is encapsulates what I have been thinking since mid-Dec when the vaccine rollout began. It has really laid bare the problems of our health care system. Don’t get me wrong, these problems have been readily apparent for years (decades) to anyone who has been paying attention or had to deal with unexpected medical issues or chronic illness/disability. My only hope is that seeing this dysfunction is yet another wake up call to people that our HC system needs to change. Probably wishful thinking, but one can hope! The image from 1962 at the top of the newsletter really hits home. My 83-year old father is a retired pharmacist, and when we’ve talked about vaccination he’s always told me was that soon after graduating and moving to the town where he still lives to take a pharmacy job he volunteered at a polio vaccination drive that was happening at the local high school in the early 1960s. He mentioned that they used the sugar cubes! :) Now fast forward to 2021 and he’s been trying to navigate the system these past few weeks to access the COVID vaccine with no luck. He’s maintaining a positive attitude like always but it is frustrating!
Our county is one of the best in Washington State for vaccinations. We just got our jab yesterday, but the big problem is still lack of vaccine. One nearby clinic opened on a first come, first served basis and turned away about a thousand people waiting in line. Yes, the local tribes are involved. The Jamestown, the local machers, as we Jews call them, have been running their own clinic and have opened it to the local non-tribal population, but they were the ones who turned away that thousand. They can do the organizational stuff just fine, as can others, but supplies are the real problem. (There's a county clinic running even now. A friend of ours, a local veterinarian - the other kind of vet, is working there giving injections.)
We are hoping improved supplies make vaccination easier, but mRNA vaccines like the Pfizer and Moderna ones are a totally new technology. Stuff like the protein for encapsulating the RNA and convincing cells to absorb it and use it for making antibody targets were usually ordered by the milligram, but now the demand is for kilograms. I'm rather amazed that we are doing as well as we are. God bless the bioreactor engineers and may no one cheap out on UV lamps fo the emergency/overflow vents. The money that was spent responding to MERS and SARS and seemed to have been wasted when public health measures brought the diseases under control turns out to have been well spent.
Biden is doing what he can. As he himself noted, his original proposal for vaccination was jeered at for being to ambitious. Now it is being jeered at for being insufficient. Maybe with nation-wide coordination, the good guys can get on the case and deal with COVID-19 as it should have been dealt with.
My mother-in-law in England is in a rehabilitation place after surgery. She “got the jab” a few days ago with no effort on her part. I’m sure I’ve said this before on one of your pieces, but she also was born with a disability and has *never seen a medical bill.* The NHS is underfunded and has a lot of flaws but I’d take it and the higher taxes any day. Meanwhile, my parents (divorced) are navigating different systems with different requirements in two different Montana counties while I hear of friends who got it a bit earlier because someone had leftover doses from the 1a batch 🤦🏻♀️
Loved this analysis, so sharp as always! But I really liked the redpilling piece. I don’t know that it said anything new but it said it well (except that, as you probably remember, in the Matrix Reaves’s character didn’t get the name Neo after taking the red pill; it had been his hacker pseudonym). I’ve talked with a teen boy or two who don’t identify as liberal but scoff at the 8/4chan boards, so I wonder where that’s all going.
We're "registered" in NM and waiting. There aren't any technical or bureaucratic hurdles, really. I'm a nerd, besides. I *think* the problem is there's hardly any vaccine because the Trump administration shortchanged states with Democratic governors. Last I heard, the state had received well under 200,000 doses for a population of over 2 million.
I've been "navigating" the shitshow that is our healthcare system for over 26 years as a mother/caregiver for my severely disabled now young-adult daughter. When everyone began talking about the magic pill that was the vaccination, I shook my head. Not in cynicism but in knowledge. Thank you for writing so clearly about this.
A little bit tangential, but you mentioned the devastation of the 1918 flu in some villages in Alaska and the re-routing of last year's Iditarod due to COVID. Part of the origin story of the Iditarod itself is also about an infectious disease. In 1925, the Iditarod Trail, something quite similar to the routes that make up the modern Iditarod race, was used to rush a serum needed to stop a deadly diphtheria outbreak from Anchorage to Nome at a time of year when Nome's harbor was frozen in and it was too cold for planes to fly and the nearest train station was 700 miles away. Teams of mushers and sled dogs carried the medication in a relay setup from that train station to Nome in a little over five days.
Another aspect I've recently dealt with--trying to be a science communications expert and share why my grandparents should get the vaccine. I have a few antivax relatives and they live closer to my grandparents. My grandmother told me this week that because they advised her not to get it, she wouldn't. Misinformation has devastating consequences.
Unlike the "rights" in the Bill of Rights, which are negative rights: the things government is not allowed to do to you, the "right" to health care is a positive one: things others are required to do in order to satisfy your needs.
These are fundamentally different "rights". Who compels others to perform actions to satisfy your needs? On what basis do those who are tasked to do so make their judgements? Do those who are compelled to meet your needs have any recourse if they disagree? Are they paid to perform as you decree? If so, who pays them? Where does the money come from for that?
It's easy enough to make a case for these positive "rights" in the limited contexts of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act or the VA (in the latter of which they aren't really "rights" as such but rather earned privileges based on military service) but extending the concept as a general principle leads to many sticky questions.
It's usual to hear citations of the "successes" of other countries in their government-run health care systems, but the stories are far from universal: complaints about the the NHS in the UK are manifold, for example, and Canadians who can afford to do so flock to the States to get treatments that might only come available to them after their death in Canada.
So I'm quite unconvinced about these "rights" to the fruits of other people's labors.
That 100 million in 100 days was the same plan that the previous admin had. They're just continuing it. And the problem is that it's not fully in the hands of the private sector. Whenever government is involved (either directly or through burdensome regulations), it's ALWAYS more expensive and inefficient. If they simply had a hands off approach and allowed the market to work, it would be much faster. But the pharma companies are hamstrung by all these rules regarding priority...etc. And yes, in a free market system, the ones that can pay the most will get it quicker. But that will also inure to the benefit of the less well off because the distribution to them will happen quicker as a result of the money being made off the higher end.
Imagine if the government was in charge of getting you the food you put on your table every day. It would cost 5X to 10x what you currently pay and your choices would be limited.
AMG5 min ago
Thank you! This is encapsulates what I have been thinking since mid-Dec when the vaccine rollout began. It has really laid bare the problems of our health care system. Don’t get me wrong, these problems have been readily apparent for years (decades) to anyone who has been paying attention or had to deal with unexpected medical issues or chronic illness/disability. My only hope is that seeing this dysfunction is yet another wake up call to people that our HC system needs to change. Probably wishful thinking, but one can hope! The image from 1962 at the top of the newsletter really hits home. My 83-year old father is a retired pharmacist, and when we’ve talked about vaccination he’s always told me was that soon after graduating and moving to the town where he still lives to take a pharmacy job he volunteered at a polio vaccination drive that was happening at the local high school in the early 1960s. He mentioned that they used the sugar cubes! :) Now fast forward to 2021 and he’s been trying to navigate the system these past few weeks to access the COVID vaccine with no luck. He’s maintaining a positive attitude like always but it is frustrating!