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Today is different - Jenni asked for money yesterday. Today, Elysha e-mailed me and asked me to order a router from Amazon. "I was wondering if I could take you
up on your offer from yesterday about stuff from Amazon. I've looked at 2
stores for a decent Wi-Fi router and can't find anything under $100. The one on
my wish list seems like it would work with my modem. This shit is so confusing
and expensive. Anyway, we're getting hit up by the movers one more time to pay
off our balance and we've dipped into our savings twice. Sigh..... I hate asking
but if you can it would be awesome. I appreciate it. I'll give you a call again
on Saturday. Hopefully everything gets delivered okay and I'll have good news
about work.
Stay safe. Love you "
I told her to ask if she ever needed anything we could send her from Amazon so I also ordered a $50 gift card to go with it. The movers sound like shit. I hope she rips them a new one on Yelp.
In the news: Oakland's airport is selling Covid-19 tests in vending machines. Travelers will collect a saliva sample and then send it in for testing via FedEx. They'll get the results back through an app on their phone. Results are ready within 24 to 48 hours. Wow. And Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, which was turned into one of the biggest Covid-19 vaccination sites in the U.S. this month, was closed for almost an hour Saturday afternoon because of a protest, a city official said. About 50 protesters gathered at the entrance of the baseball stadium, affecting motorists waiting in line to get their shots. The demonstrators included members of anti-vaccine and far-right groups. For goodness sake, what is wrong with people? I can't believe that. By the way, my letter to the editor was in today's Star-Ledger- beside an editorial that claimed our county vaccination system is great...
Here's the editorial:
Essex County an effective model for vaccine distributionWe have passed the one-month mark for vaccine distribution, yet the rollout is getting more confusing and frustrating as the coronavirus continues its rampage across New Jersey.
Whereas some states have an effective, centralized sign-up system for appointments — not to mention lines filled with people who know they’re going to get jabbed before they return home — our state is overpopulated by desperate shut-ins chained to their laptops, wasting hours poking at a refresh button, and overwhelmed by futility when another day’s toil produces the same message: “There are no appointments available.”
But this fraught moment shouldn’t pass without noting that some Jersey places have handled vaccine distribution well, such as Joe DiVincenzo’s Essex County, where organization, resources, political clout, and volunteerism have turned the state’s hardest-hit county into a model for rollout.
The county executive says he is getting calls “from everywhere” to pick his brain, but he always starts with some variation of that John Wooden adage: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
“We started organizing in October, when we knew vaccines were going to be priorities 1, 2, and 3,” said DiVincenzo, who has five distribution sites, including an empty Sears and a vacant K-Mart. “So we worked hard on the website portal. We do mailings and robocalls. We wanted people to be engaged whether they wanted the vaccine or not, they had to have the info to make the right choice.”
It was more than providence. It helps to have influence: Essex receives more doses than any other county — 11,000 last week. But you still have to get it into arms, and Essex has the infrastructure to distribute 25,000 per week if it had the supply. It also helps that DiVincenzo has “thousands” of volunteers available to work beside paid staff.
The Essex model has been so effective, Assembly minority leader Jon Bramnick, a Republican from Union County, suggests that “Joe D. should go to Trenton and run the state distribution program — and I’m serious.”
But Essex is the outlier, as everyone else is waiting for ramp-ups on production.
It is a difficult calibration, but New Jersey could do a better job of allocating resources to places like Jersey City, which last week received its allotment of 500 doses on Monday at 9 a.m. and ran out by Wednesday afternoon.
City health director Stacey Flanagan says they manage to squeeze 12 doses out of vials that usually contain 10, but that’s untenable: They haven’t even finished the first round of jabs for all the city’s cops and health care workers yet. The 700 doses that Jersey’s second-largest city will receive tomorrow are already accounted for — by seniors on a waiting list.
Mayor Steve Fulop asks for 1,000 doses per week, but the state tells him it’s Hudson County’s call — and the county only gets 3,500, which is why its distribution rate is third-lowest (4.3 percent) in the state. His consternation peaked when the state refused to let him use the Jersey City Armory as a main distribution point because the activity would “damage the floor.”
You can’t blame any mayor fighting the urge to point fingers and scream from the rooftops. Consider Andre Sayegh of Paterson: His city exhausted its meager supply (700 doses) very quickly because it welcomes interlopers: “We’re not turning people away — the virus doesn’t stop at the Clifton border,” he said.
But the Essex model shows what can be done once the supply ramps up, and that is cause for hope. New Jerseyans have gotten pretty good at staying patient after a year of this ordeal. Let’s do it a little while longer.
And my letter countering it:
FEEDBACK
Essex is struggling with vaccinations, too
A letter writer recently praised the vaccination program in Essex County and said he received acknowledgment and an appointment within a couple of weeks. I’d like to know who he knows in the system, or what conditions he and his wife have that got them in so quickly.
I’ve registered three times, been “acknowledged”, but haven’t come close to getting a vaccination date, either through the county, or my doctor’s office. The county executive calls our house to tell us how good he’s doing every week or so, and urges us to make appointments. We’ve gotten so we ignore them, because they are of little or no use.
My husband also saw someone yelling at the cashier at Walgreens about getting the vaccine and not being able to get the vaccine anywhere. Essex County isn’t doing any better than anywhere else, maybe worse. But we do have an executive that likes to say we are doing better.
Kathleen Pearlman Verona
A letter writer recently praised the vaccination program in Essex County and said he received acknowledgment and an appointment within a couple of weeks. I’d like to know who he knows in the system, or what conditions he and his wife have that got them in so quickly.
I’ve registered three times, been “acknowledged”, but haven’t come close to getting a vaccination date, either through the county, or my doctor’s office. The county executive calls our house to tell us how good he’s doing every week or so, and urges us to make appointments. We’ve gotten so we ignore them, because they are of little or no use.
My husband also saw someone yelling at the cashier at Walgreens about getting the vaccine and not being able to get the vaccine anywhere. Essex County isn’t doing any better than anywhere else, maybe worse. But we do have an executive that likes to say we are doing better.
Kathleen Pearlman Verona
Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
Data is collected from multiple sources that update at different times and may not always align. Some locations may not provide complete information.
Essex County cases
Updated Jan 31 at 1:29 PM local
Confirmed
65,161
+897
Deaths
2,538
+4
Recovered
-
New Jersey cases
Updated Jan 31 at 1:29 PM local
Confirmed
695,628
+8,359
Deaths
21,455
+72
Recovered
-
United States cases
Updated Jan 31 at 1:29 PM local
Confirmed
26,308,290
+99,999
Deaths
443,817
+1,771
Recovered
11,166,500
Global cases
Updated Jan 31 at 1:29 PM local
Confirmed
102,691,967
+388,251
Deaths
2,222,403
+9,709
Recovered
56,897,048
+312,051
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