I appreciate you writing on this topic. I never had the opportunity to deep dive into it myself, and I'm grateful that you did.
One immediate reaction is to this from your article: "DeSantis overruled the CDC’s guidance on priority, choosing instead to favor seniors across the board. (While this is somewhat defensible from an epidemiological perspective, the concern here is that seniors in Florida are a reliable vote in a swing state — which makes for bad, very avoidable optics.)"
In raising this as a concern, I think 60 Minutes may have left out critical context: the CDC guidance itself was controversial and hotly debated amongst the chattering class -- both from the political left and right.
Specifically, the guidance was criticized as overly complex. Complexity would ultimate slow vaccinations, and, well, speed is all that mattered.
Ross cites an article by Matthew Yglesias, who is definitely considered a commentator on the political left, arguing for the strategy that I perceive DeSantis ultimately embraced: https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly
With that context, it seems this particular decision by DeSantis could be interpreted as quite wise (I certainly thought it was was, as my Orlando-baed in-laws were vaccinated a full 6 weeks before my Missouri-based parents.). Perhaps the decision also had political benefits -- which it sounds like 60 Minutes believed was the primary driver for his decision. But given the aforementioned context, that seems like a silly conclusion for 60 Minutes to draw.
Curious to hear your thoughts (if you have any) on that narrow topic.
I disagree with this view of the situation. The editing was bad largely because it was used to create a contextual impression that he was being mad and defensive, but it was unnecessary. It did address the question in an important way that you seem to be missing (or you think the question is something other than what was being asked.) For some reason you think it is good to ignore his claim about who made the call. It is absolutely relevant and not right to cut.
The fundamental and obnoxiously repeated claim being pushed by 60 Minutes was that it was "Pay to Play". There is no evidence of that. He did answer the question. I would have thought a big advantage at the state level would have been to deal with a smaller set of distributors, and increase incrementally.
Publix's rights do not appear to be exclusive at any meaningful level. As you said, it was a maximum of 23%. Florida are using CVS, Winn-Dixie, Harveys and Fresco y Más. County Health departments have the vaccine. A temporary solution to make there be one answer for PBC while supplies were increasing doesn't seem like it even caused any harm.
I agree with the prior commenter that the over 65 roll out strategy is epidemiologically valid.
Hey, sorry for relayed reply! I've been working on a follow-up piece here that's felt like it was a day away for like 10 days now. While I cover some of your concerns in said follow-up, to address a few things directly here:
- CBS cut the interview to fit their package (which was what supplied context for the exchange as presented). If you watch the package as it aired, it's pretty clear that their larger issue was the deal being exclusive, not that *a* Publix deal existed (or who suggested it, etc). So while it's true that this wouldn't be obvious to someone who only watched The Daily Caller's cut, that's kinda the point.
- As I say above (section III), I agree that "pay to play" was bad framing. While there was absolutely a generic favoritism concern here, labelling it as they did was wrong and unhelpful.
- While Publix rights weren't exclusive outside of PBC, the concern is that shots were re-routed away from local health facilities that had already booked out said doses. It's one thing to direct some amount of new/uncommitted supply in favor of Publix under the grounds that it's more local to the average resident than other facilities might be, but another thing entirely to pull distribution from places where residents have already agreed to receive it (thus forcing them back in line). Even if that was just a general logistics fuckup and not some kind of sweetheart deal for Publix, it's totally reasoanble for journalists to say "this decision hurt people and the larger optics make it look like some form of cronyism, so you need to explain yourself". DeSantis declined to explain himself, which is on him.
- The harm in PBC was only avoided because the Glades' county commissioner (who had been intentionally exclused from the DeSantis meeting) raised hell when she found out that local shots were being pulled. Had she not reacted as she did, we have no reason to believe that that residents from her area wouldn't have been left in the cold.
*To avoid ambiguity, McKinlay is the county commissioner over the western area of Palm Beach County known as the Glades. But there is an county NW from them called Glades County which is totally separate.
I appreciate you writing on this topic. I never had the opportunity to deep dive into it myself, and I'm grateful that you did.
One immediate reaction is to this from your article: "DeSantis overruled the CDC’s guidance on priority, choosing instead to favor seniors across the board. (While this is somewhat defensible from an epidemiological perspective, the concern here is that seniors in Florida are a reliable vote in a swing state — which makes for bad, very avoidable optics.)"
In raising this as a concern, I think 60 Minutes may have left out critical context: the CDC guidance itself was controversial and hotly debated amongst the chattering class -- both from the political left and right.
Specifically, the guidance was criticized as overly complex. Complexity would ultimate slow vaccinations, and, well, speed is all that mattered.
I first became aware of this debate in Ross Douthat's Op-ed "When You Can't Just Trust the Science": https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-science.html
Ross cites an article by Matthew Yglesias, who is definitely considered a commentator on the political left, arguing for the strategy that I perceive DeSantis ultimately embraced: https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly
With that context, it seems this particular decision by DeSantis could be interpreted as quite wise (I certainly thought it was was, as my Orlando-baed in-laws were vaccinated a full 6 weeks before my Missouri-based parents.). Perhaps the decision also had political benefits -- which it sounds like 60 Minutes believed was the primary driver for his decision. But given the aforementioned context, that seems like a silly conclusion for 60 Minutes to draw.
Curious to hear your thoughts (if you have any) on that narrow topic.
Hey, sorry for slowness here! I decided to roll my answer to your question into a sequel. See Q3 here: https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/desantis-vs-cbs-part-2
I disagree with this view of the situation. The editing was bad largely because it was used to create a contextual impression that he was being mad and defensive, but it was unnecessary. It did address the question in an important way that you seem to be missing (or you think the question is something other than what was being asked.) For some reason you think it is good to ignore his claim about who made the call. It is absolutely relevant and not right to cut.
The fundamental and obnoxiously repeated claim being pushed by 60 Minutes was that it was "Pay to Play". There is no evidence of that. He did answer the question. I would have thought a big advantage at the state level would have been to deal with a smaller set of distributors, and increase incrementally.
Publix's rights do not appear to be exclusive at any meaningful level. As you said, it was a maximum of 23%. Florida are using CVS, Winn-Dixie, Harveys and Fresco y Más. County Health departments have the vaccine. A temporary solution to make there be one answer for PBC while supplies were increasing doesn't seem like it even caused any harm.
I agree with the prior commenter that the over 65 roll out strategy is epidemiologically valid.
Hey, sorry for relayed reply! I've been working on a follow-up piece here that's felt like it was a day away for like 10 days now. While I cover some of your concerns in said follow-up, to address a few things directly here:
- CBS cut the interview to fit their package (which was what supplied context for the exchange as presented). If you watch the package as it aired, it's pretty clear that their larger issue was the deal being exclusive, not that *a* Publix deal existed (or who suggested it, etc). So while it's true that this wouldn't be obvious to someone who only watched The Daily Caller's cut, that's kinda the point.
- As I say above (section III), I agree that "pay to play" was bad framing. While there was absolutely a generic favoritism concern here, labelling it as they did was wrong and unhelpful.
- While Publix rights weren't exclusive outside of PBC, the concern is that shots were re-routed away from local health facilities that had already booked out said doses. It's one thing to direct some amount of new/uncommitted supply in favor of Publix under the grounds that it's more local to the average resident than other facilities might be, but another thing entirely to pull distribution from places where residents have already agreed to receive it (thus forcing them back in line). Even if that was just a general logistics fuckup and not some kind of sweetheart deal for Publix, it's totally reasoanble for journalists to say "this decision hurt people and the larger optics make it look like some form of cronyism, so you need to explain yourself". DeSantis declined to explain himself, which is on him.
- The harm in PBC was only avoided because the Glades' county commissioner (who had been intentionally exclused from the DeSantis meeting) raised hell when she found out that local shots were being pulled. Had she not reacted as she did, we have no reason to believe that that residents from her area wouldn't have been left in the cold.
*reasonable
*To avoid ambiguity, McKinlay is the county commissioner over the western area of Palm Beach County known as the Glades. But there is an county NW from them called Glades County which is totally separate.