This morning I got my first dose of the Moderna vaccine at a drive through clinic in Chowan, North Carolina.
So, now when I call Northam a corrupt monster for the way the vaccine is being handled in Virginia, you can know it’s a matter of principle, not personal.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
So NC isn’t checking ID’s either? Florida is having a “vaccine tourism” issue that they are going to have to fix because of folks form out of state getting shots there.
Isn’t the Governor of NC a Democrat?
On a more important note, I am glad you got yours. Did you take all of the “Compound” residents eligible, or just yourself? 😇
Incompetent or corrupt? Bad advice or base partisanship? Are we talking Northam or T****?
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I’m struck by the fact that going to another State literally takes a vaccine dose availability from someone living there. I’m sure anyone doing this has a handy rational for why it’s “OK” but the facts do not support one.
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It was a spur of the moment thing. My daughter and I get up early and she called me to look at WAVY news at 6. They were talking about the slow rollout and Virginians going to NC to get vaccinated.
Currituck had a clinic yesterday and the official they interviewed said the governor’s view was that the vaccine came from the Federal government and he regarded it as regional, not just for NC, so those close enough to drive were welcome. Currituck had used its supply but there was a clinic in Bertie and in Chowan today. So, I decided to take a chance and drive the Chowan, half expecting to be turned away.
When I got there, an hour before the clinic was to begin, I was about #12 in line. A deputy walked along the line telling people to pull up close to make room for more cars as they arrived.I decided I might as well get it over with and commented to him that it had been a lovely drive down from Chesapeake. He said “You’re from Virginia? Well, you’ll have to leave.” confirming my fears that it was a wasted trip.
Then he cracked a smile you could see through his mask and said “Just messing with you, we’re glad to have you. Tell your friends we’ll be doing it again next Wednesday.”
A short wait, a little paperwork, and a quick jab without ever getting out of the car. Then to a designated parking area for 15 minute wait with instructions to blow the horn if I felt unwell. They gave me a card to come back in 4 weeks for the 2nd injection.
I didn’t take the wife because a 3 hour ride I did not expect to be successful was not a good idea with her healing knee. But I’ll be taking her next week.
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I don’t even know what your point is. You like NC’s approach better? NC is more efficient?
Where does “corrupt monster” come into play?
Your position seems petty and selfish.
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Virginia is sitting on half a million doses to be sure the ‘wrong’ people don’t get them.
NC took the position that vaccines belong in arms and called for all healthcare workers and those over 65 to come the get vaccinated.
While Virginia has added those over 65 to Phase 1b, the way the vaccine is being distributed makes it largely impossible for them to get. Virginia’s doses are going to hospitals and being held for employer based clinics and public employees. Chesapeake has no ‘open to the public’ vaccination clinics planned at this time.
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“corrupt monster”
Because you might have had to wait a week or two more than you wanted. My wife is British so I know that in some cultures queue jumping is considered boorish and uncivil. Do you share that attitude? Who do you suppose will not get vaccinated and might die in NC because you could not wait your turn in Virginia?
I am sure you will not agree but your apparent glee at beating the system and jumping the queue is emblematic to me of the “Me first” and Devil-take-the-hindmost attitude that is the hallmark of the sort of Ayn Randian “conservatism” that you espouse. High marks for consistency at least.
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An individual’s reaction to dire circumstances that elicit self preservation fears reveal a lot about their character (or lack thereof).
Particularly when it is not a reflexive reaction that does not allow someone to consider what they choose to do…
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Well, you’re certainly welcome to wait if you want, or have you already been vaccinated?
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I have not, but will when granted access.
And yes, II am welcome to do what I consider to be the appropriate thing to do based on my broad understanding of my place in our shared fellowship.
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When you’re granted access
Think about that.
Do you understand how the registration process Len provided us a link for actually works? You put in your contact information and then answer pages of questions about who you are and where you work. Only recently they added to question of age group.
But that doesn’t put you in a queue, or even a lottery. It just puts you in a database. You don’t get scheduled until they send you an email with a numbered link in it that allows you access to the appointment system.
So, some nameless, unaccountable bureaucrat will decide what class to send the invites to. It could be those over 65 tomorrow, but it could also be letter carriers, or grocery clerks, or transit workers.
Over 65 could be called tomorrow, but Phase 1b includes half the adults in the state. Over 65 could be the very last called, and you have no control or recourse.
So, if you’re happy with some nameless person who never faces the voters or is subject to any liability for their choices to choose who lives and who dies then by all means wait for them to ‘grant’ you your ticket.
‘All the animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’
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You made a conscious decision based on your ability and knowledge and jumped the line. Period.
IMO. You are working hard to put your actions in a light that you believe justifies that action.
I’ll live with our “systems” vagaries vice the alternative and will reiterate my visceral feelings:
“I’m struck by the fact that going to another State literally takes a vaccine dose availability from someone living there. I’m sure anyone doing this has a handy rational for why it’s “OK” but the facts do not support one.“
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You’re OK with Virginia’s systems ‘vagaries’ but not with North Carolina’s?
North Carolina’s system is to save as many as possible by vaccinating the vulnerable while Virginia’s is to pander to those who reliably vote Democrat and let people die.
Anyone who is not furious at Northam is abetting his corruption.
Oh, and don’t worry about North Carolina. Remember that future vaccine allocations will be based not just on population but also on how fast doses get into arms. North Carolina’s policy of rapid vaccination, including any Virginians who show up, will get them bonus allocations in the next round, while Virginia sitting on 2/3rd of the doses it has will result in shorter supplies.
North Carolina residents will benefit in the end.
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A very “distract and deflect” post really not on point.
Sorry, I’m done….
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There is currently no path to vaccination for those over 65 and not in nursing homes in Chesapeake.
The Dept of Health has issued a list of planned vaccination clinics, but none are open to the public. Some very large medical groups have been told they will get vaccine, but not when and they would only be vaccinating patients of record. so if you go to a sole practitioner or small group, tough.
It may be weeks, but it could just as easily be months.
NC takes the attitude that vaccines are for saving lives, whoever they might be, and they’re vaccinating based on vulnerability.
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You must have missed this:
“I’m struck by the fact that going to another State literally takes a vaccine dose availability from someone living there. I’m sure anyone doing this has a handy rational for why it’s “OK” but the facts do not support one.“
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BTW, Britain is vaccinating oldest first, not union first, so in that case jumping the queue would be boorish.
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Pretty sure your ability to comment on “boorishness” has been revoked.
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You pose an interesting ethical puzzle, Dr. Tabor. You are in a high-risk group that is vulnerable to Covid-19 and you crossed a political border to obtain medical treatment (vaccination) your citizenship did not offer. Did you do wrong?
I don’t think so.
First, NC was happy to treat you, even if your citizenship jurisdiction was not. NC didn’t see a problem. Why should anyone else?
Second, your vaccination is good for everyone in your social sphere. It is good for the people of NC, as well as for the people of VA, the state that failed to treat you properly.
Finally, you are under no ethical obligation to forego medical treatment that is freely offered to you. To see why, just try to imagine a philosophy that says a man must risk death solely because he lives on one side of a political boundary and not the other.
You did the right thing.
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I’m not going to worry about the ethical opinions of folk who defend Northam’s Health Dept that leaves the most vulnerable to die while paying off young government workers with preferential medical treatment.
Remember the principles of triage.
You don’t waste resources on those who cannot be saved.
You defer treatment for those who will recover anyway.
And you focus your efforts where they make the most difference. That’s what North Carolina is doing.
Virginia is just using the vaccine to pander to its core supporters.
What I don’t understand is why no one is questioning the ethics of those young people who accept preferential treatment knowing that their accepting the vaccine leaves someone else to die.
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It is very obvious that you have at least some need to rationalize your queue jumping or you would not spout such nonsense as that Northam is “corrupt mobster” and the other over-the-top mischaracterizations of what Virginia is trying to do. IMHO, of course. Your conscience is your own.
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It is not an “ethical puzzle” at all if you are a follower of Ayn Rand “conservatism.” You want to do the ethical thing? Easy. Take care of number one. If you can fix things so that someone else has to run a risk so that you won’t have to, that is what you SHOULD do. In that ethical system, of course.
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NC will get additional vaccines as a result of their ‘vaccinate the vulnerable’ policy, so who is going without?
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“NC will get additional vaccines as a result of their ‘vaccinate the vulnerable’ policy, so who is going without?”
That logic is busted. North Carolina has a fixed quantity of the doses. If you had not gotten one of the doses they now have, someone in NC would have. You have not increased their number.
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NC does not have a fixed number of doses.
If they are efficient in getting doses into arms, they will get an increased allotment.
Likewise, Virginia, letting over half a million does sit in freezers, will get reduced allotments.
So, in effect, I brought my dose with me as NC will get more while Virginia gets less due to their inefficient, overly complex process.
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Look, I do not really care if you can rationalize your queue jumping, but do you have to fall back on nonsense to do so? At any point in time NC, and every other state, DOES have a fixed number of doses. When you travel there and get a dose that is one less that they have to administer to state residents. Their efficiency measure would be the same whether that dose went in your arm or the arm of the person who got turned away when they had used up their stock. So quit pretending you are helping the people there by jumping in front of one of them. Or not.
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No, it is not my choice that gives NC more vaccines, it is their policy to get vaccines into the arms of those over 65. I am simply a beneficiary of that policy.
https://www.ajmc.com/view/new-cdc-guidance-to-base-state-covid-19-vaccine-supply-on-administration-rates
Getting vaccines into arms as fast as they get it increases their future allotments. Virginia sitting on 2/3rds of what they already got is going to result in reduced allotments
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Yeah, whatever.
But however you want to slice it, someone in NC is going to have to wait longer to get vaccinated because you jumped the queue. As I said at the outset, in some cultures queue jumping is considered boorish and uncivil. And, I would add, that people who do it ALWAYS can find a reason that justifies it. In your case it seems that you are justified because our Governor is a “corrupt monster” since he did not put you at a higher priority slot where you think you belong.
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Who in NC is going to have to wait?
The Vaccine comes from the Federal government. the states are delivering it, but I am just as much a US citizen as those in NC.
NC has chosen to deliver regionally at a very fast pace, and the Feds will redirect the supply from laggard states like VA.
But as the NC governor said, it’s a Federal vaccine being sent to the states to deliver it.
I did not deceive anyone, on the contrary, I told the deputy I was from VA and he suggested I tell my friends to come down for the next clinic.
And what makes our governor a corrupt monster has nothing to do with me any more. He is a monster because he is letting Virginians die by the hundreds so he can pander to the public employee unions his party depends upon.
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“Who in NC is going to have to wait?”
I do not actually know the name of the person but let’s describe him or her as the person next in line in Chowan just as the doses available there were all gone.
I really do not give a shit that you are a queue jumper. That is between you and your conscience. But – again – do you really have to justify yourself with nonsense. SOMEBODY in NC is going to have to wait because you drove down there to grab one of the doses they had. That is self-evident, but you are not able to acknowledge the obvious truth of it. Sad.
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Do you not understand that because of their policy to vaccinate all comers of the appropriate age, they are given MORE doses?
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And you took one of them so somebody else will have to wait. This is not a hard concept. Really it is not.
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The same could be said of one given in Virginia.
But yes it is an easy concept.
It is a vaccine paid for by the American taxpayer. not by any one State.
it is sent to the states to be distributed but the doses in California and Virginia and North Carolina are the property of the American people.
Some states do a much better job than others, so they get bigger future allocations.
If you really have to get on your high horse, consider those young people who have already had the virus but take the vaccine anyway just to be sure. Or the 25 year old teacher, whose risk if being hospitalized if she is infected is about 1/10,000 who takes the vaccine because her union has the clout to get it and thus leaves an elderly person who is almost sure to be hospitalized unprotected.
And most of all, the politician who panders to those unions.
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“The same could be said of one given in Virginia.”
Sure, queue jumping is uncivil and boorish wherever it happens.
As for all the other queue jumpers you describe, I do not know them nor have I been subjected to their bullshit about “corrupt monsters” and politicians imaginary “pandering” to unions or “urban” people. You chose to share your vaccine exploits and I let you know my reaction. That would have been the end of it but you have become extremely defensive and won’t let it drop. If you re-read my posts, my main comments have been about the Trumpian “logic” and name-calling that you have deployed to rationalize what you did – not to the fact of your acting on your fear to protect yourself. As I have said many times already, that is between you and your conscience.
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DO you not get it? I am safe. Nothing I can recommend now can be self serving.
As for as queue jumping, was Rosa Parks wrong?
If the queue is corrupt, is it wrong to go around it? Or to seek a venue where the queue is not corrupt?
The queue in most(not all) of Virginia is beyond stupid, it is evil.
I hope Len and his wife, at least, will be heading for NC next week. But by all means, tell me why one of them should die so a grocery clerk doesn’t miss a couple of weeks work.
800,000 doses of vaccine that could be saving Virginians is sitting in freezers while Northam and Avula try to figure out how to get it into “the right” arms without any of it going to someone not connected with the party.
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Rosa Parks?
Do I have to tell you how laughable that is? The only principle you are standing up for is “Me first!” Which, as I said earlier, is entirely consistent with the Ayn Randian ethical outlook you have defended here many times.
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Was the queue just for her? Was she wrong to ignore an unjust queue? Of course, in her case it took great courage as the system was against her.
In my case, I was there at the invitation of NC’s system. I just escaped Virginia’s unjust and corrupt system. And I don’t feel a bit bad about it.
But you should consider the monster you are making excuses for and what that makes you.
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…”I was there at the invitation of NC’s system.”
So you are saying that you got an invite from NC to get vaccinated before a resident of NC could? Not plausible. Unless your daughter is the head of the vaccination plan in NC.
Unjust and corrupt? Conjecture. Poorly planned and executed is the more correct statement.
PS My NY state based father got his shot on Wednesday with an appointment for his second scheduled on February 18. His wife got hers yesterday (one of 300 doses available in their part of Ulster County).
So comments denigrating Cuomo are unfounded attacks on a governor who just happens to be a Democrat. And as I pointed out earlier, so is the governor of NC. Bipartisan success and bipartisan failures at state levels do not indicate corruption or evil.
And Florida has updated their plan in indicate that “vaccine tourists” are no longer welcomed.
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NC did not invite me personally, it invited you too if you are over 65. They are just getting vaccine into people who need it most as quickly as possible, as Virginia should be.
BTW, there is absolutely no science supporting giving teacher priority of elders, or anyone else. They are getting priority on pure political influence.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/new-study-finds-covid-transmission-in-schools-is-extremely-rare/
I’m glad your father and spouse got their vaccinations.
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“But you should consider the monster you are making excuses for and what that makes you.”
This particular ad hominem comment would have, maybe, a little sting if it were not coming from someone who cannot find fault in Donald Trump even as his lies kill tens of thousands of people and inspire violent insurrection.
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Trump is not relevant to the horrendous treachery of Northam’s Health Dept against the people of Virginia. Trump delivered the vaccine.
There are enough excess doses being held in VA right now to vaccinate everyone in VA between 65 and 74.. The deaths could stop before the end of February were Northam not using the vaccine to pay off public employee unions.
All across Virginia, the vaccines are being delivered to teachers in spite of clear science that they are not at increased risk and in spite of their not being in Phase 1b, Yet they are being vaccinated ahead of 1B and before many in 1a.
See today’s Pilot editorial and LTEs
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See TODAY’S report about the actual numbers of vaccines delivered. It is not as bad as you have made pout.
“As of Saturday, Virginia had distributed 1,010,500 vaccine doses to vaccination sites, according to the Virginia Department of Health. About 444,000 — or 44% of the supplies — has been put into people’s arms.”
May be slow, but it not the 25% you keep touting. It seems like, PERHAPS, the reporting is slower than the actual vaccinations.
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Simply transferring the vaccines to vaccination centers does nothing. They just sit in different freezers.
The logjam is in the registration and appointment system, as I explained earlier.
The numbers change day to day, but Virginia has never had more than 36% of what was delivered by the Fed in people’s arms.
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