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David Friedberg's COVID-19 vaccine rollout strategy | "We need to go win the war."

January 08, 2021 / 05:00

This episode discusses vaccine distribution strategies, the importance of collective vaccination, and critiques of political prioritization in health care.

The conversation emphasizes the need for a military-style operation to efficiently administer vaccines, highlighting the role of nurses and the National Guard. The speaker suggests that a structured plan could vaccinate the entire country in 90 days.

Specific examples from Israel's vaccination approach are mentioned, including the quick administration of leftover doses to anyone available, regardless of prior qualifications.

The speaker criticizes the political motivations behind vaccine distribution, arguing that prioritization based on politics rather than health needs is detrimental.

Overall, the episode calls for centralized planning and decisive action to combat the pandemic effectively.

TL;DR

Vaccine distribution needs military-style efficiency and centralized planning to overcome political barriers and ensure collective immunity.

Video

00:00:00
it is a wartime scenario when war is happening you  don't go home at 5 00 p.m and wake up at 9 00 a.m  
00:00:07
and clock out for an hour for lunch and you know  you don't uh oh well don't run too fast you know  
00:00:12
you might trip you don't do any of that we've  created incredible disincentives in the system  
00:00:18
by in fact cuomo put out a million dollar fine  if uh if you get your vaccine out of line i mean  
00:00:25
think about the disincentive that creates now  people are more scared about giving the vaccine  
00:00:30
to the wrong person than they are incentivized  to give the vaccine to the right person  
00:00:36
and the reality is this is a group game this  isn't an individual game it's not about who  
00:00:40
gets vaccinated first and you'll live and you'll  die we all need to get vaccinated as a group so  
00:00:47
that we all have immunity so that this virus stops  spreading it doesn't matter if you're individually  
00:00:52
vaccinated it matters if we're all vaccinated  because that's the only way we're all going to get  
00:00:55
out of the economic slump that is truly damaging  this country right now and so the first step  
00:01:01
is create a military-style operation figure out  how many feet on the ground you know it's all a  
00:01:06
rate-based system right how many are you running  per day and then how do you achieve that objective  
00:01:11
and over time you have your target rate per day  you would scale it up over 75 days or whatever  
00:01:16
your rollout time frame needs to be and you would  say this is how we're going to get there we need  
00:01:20
this number of people giving shots this many  minutes apart and then you go figure out where  
00:01:24
you're going to give the shots and who's going  to give them get the vaccines to where they need  
00:01:27
to get to take over all the gymnasiums and all the  stadiums and all the open sports facilities around  
00:01:32
the country people can drive up stand in line get  a freaking shot and 65 year olds get priority for  
00:01:39
the first 30 days and then after 30 days your 65  and over crowd loses their priority and it's open  
00:01:44
season for who wants to get a shot you stand in  line you get a shot walk in you got 3.8 million  
00:01:50
nurses in the united states you go contract 500  000 of them you give them a huge friggin one-time  
00:01:55
bonus to come and run this program you run 24-hour  shifts in the gymnasiums around the country  
00:02:00
people come in they get shots they get out takes  three minutes if you're feeling weird if you have  
00:02:04
risk of allergies you go sit in the other room  you wait for two hours and there's a bunch of  
00:02:08
roaming nurses keep an eye on you and you get this  thing done that's it this is not that complicated  
00:02:13
and we can leverage the national guard to create  the infrastructure to support these lines and get  
00:02:17
these things done we can go recruit there are  plenty of nurses associations you can go people  
00:02:21
can work overnight shifts and get paid triple  overtime get extra bonuses for doing this is a  
00:02:25
great way to kind of create an economic stimulus  around this we can get this entire country  
00:02:29
vaccinated in 90 days and the way that israel is  doing it is a great model you know when they run  
00:02:35
out describe that yeah so at the end of the day  if uh you know when you open when you take these  
00:02:40
things out of deep freeze you're at risk of them  spoiling at that point because the mrna is very um  
00:02:44
you know can break and so it needs to be really  cold and then you gotta give the vaccine very  
00:02:48
quickly otherwise the mrna can degrade and it's  not effective and you have to defrost it in order  
00:02:52
to give it yes you defrost it then it's sitting  there now you gotta give it within a couple hours  
00:02:56
and if you've got extra doses sitting at the end  of the day what they're doing in israel is they're  
00:02:59
looking outside they grab the pizza guy that's  on the bicycle truck on the bicycle cruising by  
00:03:04
they're like do you want a shot come on in they  give them a shot they grab the next guy you do  
00:03:07
not need to track everyone that gets a shot you do  not need everyone to show their id to get a shot  
00:03:11
you do not need to x y and z all the disincentives  that create friction in the system of rolling out  
00:03:16
the vaccine need to be completely eliminated  there's no qualifying criteria except maybe  
00:03:21
being 65 and over for the first 30 days and we've  prioritized politics over health and safety we  
00:03:28
have made it the case that the teachers should get  the shot first because the teachers unions created  
00:03:32
an uproar in california and said they're not going  to go to work unless they so now the teachers  
00:03:35
are going to get it and the essential workers  are going to get it which are people that are  
00:03:38
working in stores and warehouses and other stuff  and meanwhile the people that can actually die  
00:03:42
from this 15 likelihood of death if you're over 85  are not getting it because they're not technically  
00:03:47
an essential worker so the prioritization where  we've tried to create these artificial politically  
00:03:51
motivated systems for defining who gets the  vaccine and who doesn't is absolutely killing  
00:03:56
us and literally killing us 4 000 people died  yesterday in the united states and so this system  
00:04:00
has [ __ ] up the incentives we've and don't  bleep that out because that's exactly what it is  
00:04:07
the disincentives we've created are destroying um  the rollout um the the governor's getting involved  
00:04:12
in creating models of prioritization that are  politically motivated or killing us and and we  
00:04:16
should centrally plan this thing ward production  act make a shit-ton of the stuff grab it all get a  
00:04:21
hundred million doses distributed into gymnasiums  around the country get the nurses in there get the  
00:04:25
national guard it should have been federal i mean  that's the key this should have been a federal  
00:04:29
effort central planning is sometimes needed to  get [ __ ] done we did it with the war production  
00:04:33
board during world war ii we did it with the  manhattan project we there have been countless  
00:04:38
examples where we've had to centralize planning  for a massive short-term event and this is one of  
00:04:44
those events and this needs to be um prioritized  and organized centrally and it needs to have the  
00:04:50
right-minded people on this not kind of people  that are you know political operatives and not  
00:04:54
people that are working five um and this is this  is a war and we need to go win the [ __ ] war

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Episode Highlights

  • Collective Vaccination
    Vaccination is a group effort; individual actions won't stop the virus.
    “This is a group game, not an individual game.”
    @ 00m 36s
    January 08, 2021
  • Critique of Vaccination Strategy
    Current disincentives in the vaccination rollout are causing harm.
    “The disincentives we've created are destroying the rollout.”
    @ 04m 00s
    January 08, 2021
  • Need for Central Planning
    Centralized planning is essential for effective vaccination distribution.
    “Central planning is sometimes needed to get shit done.”
    @ 04m 29s
    January 08, 2021

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Vaccine Disincentives00:12
  • Group Immunity00:36
  • Military Operation01:01
  • Nurse Recruitment01:50
  • Political Prioritization03:51
  • Vaccine Distribution04:25
  • Centralized Planning04:50

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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