My euphoria about the idea that I should be able to get vaccinated by the end of May was somewhat dampened after texting with my son in North Carolina. He and his wife have already been vaccinated. I’m very happy for them, of course, that’s wonderful news, their jobs involve public contact. But, yeah, I’m probably going to be one of the end of May people* (see update below), and will be literally the last person in my family to get the vaccine, including in-laws, outlaws, and first cousins once removed.
Governor FloridaMan, Governor DeathSantis, or as I call him, DeShithead, is going to comply with the federal guidelines for vaccinating school personnel of any age, but he did pout about it, and say that he still thinks vaccinating the over 65 is much more important. Of course he does, that’s his best hope for reelection. The millions of hospitality, service industry, first responders and educators, and the many other classes of employment he’s thrown under the COVID bus – he actually said if they get it, it’s not a big deal, they probably won’t die – aren’t going to forget.
This is just an example of how the Trump “policy” of, “Fuck it, let the states deal with it,” has been wildly erratic and disastrous if you have a Republican governor. I’ve been keeping track of case numbers in the back of my journal for the last several months, and I can point to the spike in cases after DeShithead said, “Open everything up!”
The only thing that prevented a true disaster is that most businesses said, “Yeah, no,” and continued to enforce CDC guidelines, and most people didn’t see a need to rush back to bars and restaurants. Our daily case counts still tripled. We had been under 2k cases a day, it spiked to way high, like 15k a day in January, and has come down to a fairly steady 6-7k new cases a day for the last couple of months. A hundred-twenty, a hundred-forty dead a day? Meh, they probably weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
Anyway, I’m very thankful we now have the Biden Administration doing what should have been done all along: using the Defense Production Act, brokering deals between competing drug companies to get the vaccine rolled out faster, putting together teams that can jab arms and setting up more federal vaccination sites to bypass state restrictions on who that governor thinks is “worthy.”
*I wrote this yesterday. Today, DeShithead teased that he may be able to lower the age for vaccination to, maybe 60, then 55, “soon”. Seriously, are other governors doing DAILY press conferences on this? This asshole is treating it like a goddamn game show, teasing “tune in tomorrow, and see what I’ll do next.”
My daughter has an appointment for her first vaccine tomorrow. Thanks, President Biden!
DeShithead is overseeing a death march. You know it’s bad when Utah and North Carolina are doing better than this state.
I cannot wait to get out of here and only wish you and the family had that option. I don’t hold out much hope for this state to get a grip and ever elect a democratic governor. I hope you’re somehow able to get vaccinated sooner. If he DOES lower the age, I highly recommend Publix for vaccination appointments.
crossing fingers for you.
Actually we came close last time, DeShithead only won by .4%. I suspect he’ll lower the age soon, because the feds are opening up more vaccination sites every day. His time of playing COVID Concierge and letting the big tippers go to the front of the line is coming to an end.
Lord, I hope so. This system of governors controlling policy in an international pandemic is disastrous.