Finally, a COVID vaccine has arrived in Montana. Merry Christmas, right? Several television segments (in Bozeman, Billings, Missoula, and Kalispell) showed ceremoniously open shipments, with magic sauce containers duly enthroned in each community freezer.
I’m sorry, but this early Christmas gift was a little disappointing.
A tangible “light at the end of the tunnel” is welcome, but honestly, it’s still a long flipping tunnel. Keep that in mind since this pandemic really started in March, we’ve seen over 732,000 tests done in nine months. This is not for everyone, and some have been tested several times. Vaccines take longer than a swab.
Remember that “our” magic sauce only required 975 first doses of two. But Flathead County has more than 100,000 citizens. Just over 8,100 Flatheaders have tested positive for the virus, about 8%, a spread above the state average of 7%. About 7,000 have recovered and 1,100 are already sick or active. This causes 92,000 people in this county to be in the queue, but don’t forget, it is not known that the “recovered” are permanently immune, so they continue in this line. If I feel a needle before June 2021, it will surprise me.
Sigh.
However, the line could be narrowed. The Pfizer vaccine is not the only line of development. It is rational to expect additional vaccines that do not require deep-freezing, that do not require doses, cost less, and are safer and more effective; they all flow along multiple streams of supply, more quickly, until life finally resembles “normality” – which will be a fundamentally new normality.
How long will this “normal” last? We could “conquer” COVID-19, but it can never be objectively eradicated like smallpox, tucked away in a last lab freezer. Most likely, we will see maybe COVID-21, 23, etc., maybe forever.
Will you be ready, again? At least you have toilet paper, right?
For now, the line finally moves. Who goes first? It is clear that health workers and others in nearby and confined environments who have to reach a meter and a half of viral patients take first place. Then come those in nearby settings, not just hospitals or residences, but also prisons. And to keep criminals off the street, why not judicial officials / judicial officers / jurors?
Then come the vulnerable seniors, the first “confined”, who work through comorbidities and age classes, and then under 65, to top-tier private jobs.
But there is another unique confined environment in Montana, where those who work there should be close to the vaccination line: the Montana Capitol.
The Montana legislature meets only for 90 business days every two years. The 2021 session begins in two weeks. The agenda will be filled, mainly with budgetary fundamentals and essential tasks; I just hope the social engineering flourishes stay at last or not.
I would suggest that our elected officials and their directly involved face-to-face staff (plus perhaps designated heads of agencies) be clearly classified as priority candidates for vaccination as soon as possible. About 500 carefully assigned doses would suffice.
Because? The business of the citizens of Montana, and those we chose to do this business and set the table for the next two years, is a must, better done face to face. Period. Vaccination will help Montana state government leaders focus better and more confidently on the work they do. Less fear means more brain capacity applied to common sense.
But I will draw the line of “essential vaccinations” firmly above any paid pressure group or agency staff who are normally assigned to give “advisory testimony”.
Under normal conditions, Montana has a “popular legislature.” I’ve always made small road trips there for two minutes of citizen glory. But my pleasure, after being rehearsed by the usual snowstorms, paying for my own gas, lousy food, and a crunchy motel, has faded a bit, as I have realized that citizens like me compete : year after year, I see the same all – paid costumes sitting at “their” seats in “their” banks in Lobbyist Alley session after session, account by account. The same agreement for state bureaucrats, full of clandestine “councils” that are a poorly disguised lobby. I tell them: let us be in line with the rest of us.