Tag Archives: vaccine

A Potential Silver Lining In the Dark Cloud That Is Trump’s Vaccine Rollout

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It’s painfully obvious that former President Trump badly screwed up the parts of the Covid-19 vaccine initiative that he actually controlled.  While he obviously wasn’t equipped to be in the lab developing vaccines quickly, he was in a position to order the right number of doses, develop a plan for getting the vaccine to at least 70 percent of us, and marshal resources to implement the plan.

He botched that assignment, and that has put a very dark cloud over President Biden, who needs a relatively swift end to the pandemic in order to have any hope of having a successful presidency.

But maybe there is a bit of a silver lining in that dark cloud–highly visible consumer demand created by the shortage.

As all good Adam Smith fanboys know, the law of supply and demand tells us that low supply will create high demand for a product.  In a nation with a sizable slice of vaccine doubters, creating more demand for the Covid-19 vaccine will be critically important. 

It’s no secret that shortages, or perceptions of shortages, are powerful tools for marketers.  For instance, the makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Nintendo Wii produced too few products, perhaps intentionally, and that generated tremendous consumer demand.  As a result of the shortage, those companies benefited from months of millions of dollars worth of free new media coverage of consumers waiting in line.  Sales ultimately surged, as consumers apparently thought to themselves, “I mean, if all of them want it so badly, I must want it too!”

This happens all the time in capitalistic economies. Shortages increases consumer demand.  That’s also why so many internet marketers go to great lengths to tell us how few of their products remain available.  It’s why the Starbuck’s Unicorn Cappuccino and McDonalds’ McRib sandwich are only available for “a limited time only.” 

Based on those examples and many others, all of this news and social media coverage about Americans fretting about vaccine shortages and bragging about getting their vaccine before the rest of us may help convince some number of Americans that they want this product as well. 

“I mean, if all of them want it so badly, I must want it too?”

And indeed, newer surveys are showing that more early skeptics are getting interested in getting vaccinated.  In September 2020, when Trump was still in charge, and wildly exaggerating everything about his Covid response, the number of Americans saying they would definitely get vaccinated was only about 51%.  This posed a huge challenge, because  epidemiologists tell us we need about 70% to get the Fauchi Ouchy in order to achieve the necessary herd immunity. 

By December, with Biden starting to take the reins and positive test results rolling in, the number had grown to 61%. That’s important progress.

But how do we get from 61% to 70%? The news media and social media obsession with the vaccine shortage, and Americans doing victory dances on their social media feeds after getting vaccinated, may do for Fauci what the Wii shortage did for Nintendo.

To be clear, there will be lethal implications of Trump’s bumbling of the vaccination distribution plan.  A delay of a month or two will mean many Americans will needlessly get sick and die. That’s tragic and inexcusable.

But as we continue to mop up Trump-generated calamities, we have to take the good news wherever we can find it.  And maybe this current vaccine shortage will help convince enough of the remaining vaccine fence-sitters to join the herd.

No Vaccine Can Save Christie

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Lambert_to_the_SlaughterI should have included Chris Christie in my recent handicapping of the Republican presidential race. At first it was simply that I forgot him. Oops. But then when I remembered, I thought, “Oh, why bother? There’s no way the guy holds up under even a week’s worth of the full media barrage. Sarah Palin, because she’s wrapped in a completely delusional partisan bubble, would survive longer than him.”

The irony here is that there are actually a few things I like about Christie, among them precisely the quirks of personality that would keep him in permanent meltdown mode on the national campaign trail. By that I mean, the guy gets annoyed … easily.

On one level, the one where you and I live, getting annoyed with idiots and the bastards trying to saw your legs out from under you is natural and human. It feels good, cathartic actually, to blurt out things like, “Are you nuts?”, or “[Bleep] off, [bleep]hole.” It’s a healthy sign that you’re not some robot spinning in an orbit separate from all other life on the planet. And, quite frankly, I find it kind of refreshing when a cool, composed dude like Barack Obama let’s loose with a line like that one about Kanye West being “a jackass.”

I’d have a beer with guys like that. More reality. Less pretense.

But beyond that, Christie, despite the infatuation of conservative deep thinkers like the rarely right Ann Coulter, is three-plus bills of liability out in the open field. His very bad week in jolly old England has been instructive in that regard. It began with him giving what would ordinarily be an unremarkable answer to a question about childhood vaccines. He replied saying that he and his wife have had their kids vaccinated, but that parents should retain some measure of control over the decision.

Fair enough, to my way of thinking. Nothing about that gets me too worked up.

But Christie’s a contender for the Throne of Dimwits, and the media is now twitching on a hair trigger for any Republican stepping anywhere, no matter how mundanely, outside the Circle of Fools. So that bland comment immediately became a test of whether Christie was sufficiently anti-science (i.e. anti-gummint vaccine) to remain viable in a world of Rick Santorums, Ted Cruzs, Rand Pauls and the 5000 gibberish-shouting radio ministers bleating into the brains of the party’s base.

Holy anti-virus.

At that point Team Christie began “the walk back”, re-tailoring his response for the fools … and making him look profoundly foolish in the process. Worse, Christie let it get to him. He let the world see him peeve and sweat.

He might have escaped if it weren’t for Bloomberg News resurrecting a story rooted in a year-old book on the 2012 presidential campaign, where Team Romney was pulling it’s well-moussed hair over Christie’s, shall we say, fat cat lifestyle demands, as in private jets and lots of fine dining.

With that coming at him simultaneous with the vaccination story, he melted, calling off press availability (which was kind of the point of him boulevardiering around London, chatting up the PM and what not).

Bottom line? Fiasco.

Then there’s the problem that improper vaxx-thinking and fat cat living aren’t his only skeletons. He likes to sell the story that that squirrely George Washington Bridge flap was decided in his favor. But that isn’t so. Ditto the pricier issue of what he’s been doing with Hurricane Sandy relief money. And then we move on to all the other stuff a heavy-handed governor of … New Jersey … has engaged in that no one outside the state has cared much about, until he sticks his head up to run for President.

So no. No Chris Christie. He’s blunt and prickly, which is okay as far as it goes and appealing up to a point. But his melting point is so low the press and opposition are primed for every word out of his mouth, knowing they have to make so little effort to piss him off to the point he flips over and can’t get up.