Monterey County Public Health has failed

Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance (6 Ps for success). Monterey County’s Covid Vaccination Plan is simply not in existence and certainly not working, and piss poor — no prior planning. Dr. Moreno, Monterey County Public Health Director, presented excuses to the Boards of Supervisors recently on why more vaccines are in the refrigerator than in people’s arms. We have known for months that vaccines were coming but no planning was done for distribution.

Start with the end in mind i.e. give residents 3,000—5,000 shots per day seven days a week. This goal would take 3-5 months seven days a week to vaccinate all county residents — a reasonable objective. Currently, Dr. Moreno and the county are dispensing vaccines at a rate that would take years to vaccinate all county residents. There is no infrastructure in place i.e. how many dispensing sites are there and where are they located, what is the staffing level and hours of operation needed at each site, what vaccine storage and transportation resources are needed, what channel of communication do we have to notify residents when it is their turn and where they must go to be vaccinated. All these questions and more need to be addressed. The federal and/or state government is simply going to say to Monterey County since you have so much vaccine in reserve, we are going to allocate additional vaccines to areas that have a shortage of vaccine supplies and have distribution plans that are functional.

All these issues should have been answered and in place before Christmas. Keep It Simple Supervisors (KISS Principle), the more red tape the longer the wait. We need better planning, need better leadership, and need better communication, etc. Monterey County Public Health has failed — at stake are people’s lives. Please do something.

— Charles Meyer, Monterey

County