Letters to the Editor: Are we over-managing the COVID vaccine rollout?

To the editor: I am 89 years old and have not yet had a COVID-19 shot. I always wear a mask and keep my distance from others when not at home. (“Ethical land mines, ‘Sophie’s Choice’ moments as California decides who gets COVID-19 vaccine next,” Feb. 5)

I will not stand in line to get the vaccine because I cannot stand in line for more than a few minutes. That isn’t a problem, because I will wait until conditions are appropriate enough for me to get one.

It’s time to end this priority system, because there is no system. Give the vaccine to whoever wants it and is willing to wait in line, assuming the problem of supply has been resolved. In some cases, people are standing at the end of the priority lines for hours hoping to get the vaccine, most unsucessfully.

We are wasting too much time trying to determine how to prioritize who gets the vaccine.

Bob Murtha, Santa Maria

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To the editor: I can’t understand why vaccine doses are still in such short supply.

There are many pharmaceutical companies that could be licensed by current suppliers Moderna and Pfizer to substantially increase supplies. For example, many of the world’s pharmaceuticals are routinely outsourced to manufacturers in India.

I hope the reason for not doing so with COVID-19 vaccines is thoroughly justifiable. People are desperate, and many may die awaiting an increased supply.

Clark Robins, Whittier

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To the editor: Officials are facing ethical landmines in COVID-19 vaccine distribution because they are grandstanding.

Literally, they are using the grandstands of inconveniently located mega-vaccination sites that serve the moderate-risk millions rather than creating vaccine microsites near the well-documented COVID hot-spot neighborhoods of high-risk thousands — where, incidentally, there aren’t grandstands for photo ops.

In 1854, a physician removed the handle from a public water pump, and it changed the world. Known as the father of epidemiology, John Snow was credited with ending a cholera outbreak in London. That was the original microsite, and there is no depiction of any official standing by the famous water pump.

The wheel does not have to be reinvented. We know the principles of fighting pandemic disease, and that’s through geography, not by creating an impossible maze of “Sophie’s Choice” categories.

Pini Herman, Beverly Grove