After another chaotic and frustrating week of news involving problems associated with the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, “Saturday Night Live” punched Governor Gavin Newsom and his own pandemic treatment.
In the opening sketch of the nightly comedy show, Dr. Anthony Fauci, played by Kate McKinnon, introduced Newsom’s character as being “hated by everyone in California, except for those 10 people he had dinner with in Napa that time. “
When asked how things were going in California, Newsom, played by Alex Moffat, replied: “Teeth, white. Tight body. Covid, really bad. ”
He was joined on stage by two other journalistic governors: Andrew Cuomo (Pete Davidson) from New York and Gretchen Whitmer (Cecily Strong) from Michigan. The three served as judges on an invented game show called “So you think you can get the vaccine”.
“The vaccine should not be a competition,” explained Fauci (McKinnon). “But Americans will only want to get it if it means that someone else cannot.”
These jokes come days after the news that a California program aimed at improving the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine in the hard-hit black and Latin communities was being misused by the wealthy and more privileged. Special access codes were provided to community groups for distribution in underserved areas – but, instead, codes began to circulate in group emails and texts among young people not yet eligible for the vaccine.
As for those who are eligible to receive their first or second injection of the vaccine, the confusion over who can make an appointment – and where – continues to frustrate older residents, as well as younger family members trying to browse the state’s website. for the most vulnerable loved ones.
Newsom, which is now Napa Valley’s famous dinner with a lobbyist and a few others during the pandemic, continues to generate criticism, also facing the possibility of a revocation election in the fall. Much of the discussion is about closing small businesses and schools, as well as the failed implementation of the vaccine in the state. Critics have also seized billions of dollars in fraudulent payments made by the state unemployment office.
In New York, Cuomo, who was seen as a star at the start of the pandemic, is also on the hot seat – with allegations of sexual harassment returning to the news, as well as his decision to send older COVID-19 patients back to nursing homes and, then, supposedly obscuring the number of nursing home patients who died.
At the end of this week’s “SNL” parody, the three governors agreed to give the vaccine to an 85-year-old contestant who was “an Army doctor, now just the most proud grandfather in the world”. They congratulated him and told him to make an appointment “online”.
“On what?” The 85-year-old asked, confused. Perhaps, he said, he could ask a young man to help him surf the internet.
Cuomo, played by Davidson, responds gravely:
“Does he have three consecutive days to help you click update?”