Florida is famous for its oranges, but Governor Ron DeSantis has lately been busy turning his lemon from a Covid-19 vaccine distribution plan into lemonade.
The first weeks of the vaccine launch in December were chaotic across the country after the Trump administration, in essence, left it up to governors to figure out how to put needles in the arms of as many people as possible.
DeSantis was severely criticized after he chose to ignore federal guidelines and give seniors priority over essential workers. County telephone banks were flooded with calls, computer systems stalled, and long lines of elderly people waited overnight outside the vaccination centers for first-come, first-served vaccinations.
DeSantis was in Miami this month when a trio of Cuban exiles who participated in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion 50 years ago had their first shots and he took the opportunity to protest against communism. And a few days before that, DeSantis appeared at a Jewish center north of Miami, where he called the Holocaust survivors who took their doses of Covid-19 “inspirations for so many people”.
The fact that an astute politician like DeSantis uses the vaccine to make political gains with two major Florida constituencies is not surprising, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. “This is what politicians do,” he said.
But the fact that it took more than a month for DeSantis to be able to publicize the distribution of vaccine doses shows the little help that governors received from the federal government at the beginning of the implementation, experts said.
“As it did during the early days of the pandemic, the Trump administration left the distribution of vaccines to the states, and the result is this patchwork approach that we see from state to state,” said Asher Hildebrand, professor of public policy at Duke University and former chief of staff to Rep. David Price, DN.C. “We must not let governors escape the bait, but it is very difficult to manage a massive distribution effort that balances efficiency with equity.”
Aubrey Jewett, an 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 with an eye on next year’s elections, when he hopes to win a second term .
“Second, he is trying to get some positive publicity for his administration in the fight against Covid-19 to counteract some of the criticisms he has faced for not taking health risk more seriously and overseeing a chaotic system where many elderly people have faced difficulties in getting a vaccine, “said Jewett.
The DeSantis administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on vaccination efforts.
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As of Tuesday, Florida had administered 2.6 million doses of vaccine, a rate of 12,141 per 100,000 people, according to the vaccine tracker at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In contrast, West Virginia has the highest coronavirus vaccination rate in the country, at 18,045 per 100,000 people.
Philip J. Palin, one of the world’s leading experts in supplying supplies to catastrophe survivors, said West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, a Republican who won the Democratic position and later returned to the Republican Party, used resources already available in the state to vaccinate more residents.
“Some states have been much better than others at exploiting 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 highly vulnerable population, but much smaller than Florida, and has been able to turn to its “pre-existing community pharmacies and black lung programs” to get vaccines, said Palin.
In Washington, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee has also taken advantage of local resources, although in this case, the resources are from Microsoft and Starbucks, which are helping with logistics and technology.
“We are removing as many impediments as possible so that the inhabitants of Washington are vaccinated. We will deliver every dose that enters our state, ”said Inslee. “We will still be dependent on the federal government for doses, but we are doing everything we can when we get here.”
Hildebrand said that contacting Starbucks and Microsoft “shows ingenuity and creative use of available resources”.
“But it is also an indictment of the federal government’s response that governors have to rely on the private sector to do this,” he said.
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States like West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico and Alaska have started well to administer vaccine doses, while states like Iowa and Missouri have lagged behind, said Hildebrand.
“But the reasons for this go beyond leadership and what works in West Virginia will not necessarily work in New York or Florida,” he said in an email.
None of this is happening in a vacuum, said Hildebrand. Each governor must operate within the specific and sometimes complicated laws of his states. And governors who have managed past crises are in a better position to respond effectively to this.
Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina “spent most of his first term responding to hurricanes, which helped him manage the current crisis calmly and competently,” said Hildebrand.
Vaccine distribution problems have also shaken the reputation of governors like Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a popular Republican in a predominantly Democratic state who prides himself on being a competent administrator – and who has received bipartisan praise for his response to the pandemic.
Among other things, Baker was slow to realize that the elderly were having trouble navigating the state website and, belatedly, opened a call center for 500 people to help them book vaccination appointments, the Boston Globe reported.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and California Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats in states hard hit by the pandemic, were also plagued by distribution problems. At one point, Cuomo suggested buying doses of vaccine directly from Pfizer, after complaining that the Trump administration did not deliver enough doses to his state.
“It is easy to beat Governor Cuomo or Governor Newsom for insisting on prioritizing the first respondents and then going back to include other groups after realizing that following strict categories was delaying distribution,” said Hildebrand. “But in both cases, the lessons learned speak of the challenges of managing an effort of this scale (and, in particular, the difficulty of balancing efficient distribution with equitable distribution).”