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Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
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31 Dec 20, 19 tweets, 6 min read
1/The most important policy in the U.S. right now is getting vaccines into arms. And we're just doing it yet.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/shots-into-a…
2/At this glacial pace, it would take many years to vaccinate our population.
3/And we do not have many years.

We don't even have many months.

A new, more transmissible strain of COVID is coming.

4/I'm no expert, but it sure looks to me like the UK hasn't been able to contain the new variant.

And if the UK can't contain it, the U.S. doesn't have a hope in hell of doing so.
5/"Supercovid" is already here. In California and Colorado.

It's here, it's spreading, and the only way to beat it is with vaccines.

We need SHOTS. IN ARMS. NOW.

apnews.com/article/us-new…
6/And we're just not getting shots into arms. We've allocated 20 million doses, but administered only around 3 million. Glacial pace.

bloomberg.com/graphics/covid…
7/Why is the pace so glacial?

Because the feds just dumped the vaccine in the lap of CVS, Walgreens, and hospitals, with no plan for administration.

Read this thread:

8/As usual, the chief culprit is Donald Trump. While the plague rages unchecked, he has focused all his energy and effort on overturning the results of a free and fair election.

The result will be many many thousands of dead Americans.
9/Now, the situation will improve *somewhat*, as cities set up mass vaccination sites, and as the money from the new relief bill starts flowing.

nbcchicago.com/news/local/chi…
10/But we don't have that long. We need to accelerate the process. We need shots in arms NOW, not in two months or three months.
11/As @mattyglesias points out, a big chunk of the problem is just money.

12/Some federal money is on the way. But billionaires and corporations should be shoveling money at vaccine administration right now.
13/Second, it is UNCONSCIONABLE that some vaccine doses will expire without being given to humans, simply because providers aren't able to find priority recipients in time.

14/Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have a shelf life of about 30 days under typical storage conditions. At the pace we're going, that probably isn't enough...

pfizer.com/news/hot-topic…

investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/…
15/If doses are about to expire they should be given out on a first-come first-serve basis. To do anything else would be a monstrous sin.

abcnews.go.com/Health/kentuck…
16/Finally, states and cities need to reprioritize all of their resources toward rapid vaccination. With supercovid on the way, there is no more important task.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
17/Oh, and anyone who intentionally destroys vaccine doses should be put behind bars.

18/Say it with me, people.

SHOTS. INTO ARMS. NOW.

#ShotsIntoArmsNOW

noahpinion.substack.com/p/shots-into-a…
19/Anyway, if you want my Substack posts delivered directly to your inbox, remember to sign up for my free email list!

(end)

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More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
31 Dec 20
1/OK let's talk about immigration and wages.

Lots of people think immigration reduces wages, at least for some groups of native-born workers.

It is very difficult if not impossible to dissuade them from this belief.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigrat…
2/Most people think immigration is just a positive labor supply shock. Add more workers, get more labor supply.

This is the model they have in their minds. In this model, immigration makes wages go down.
3/But there's a second effect of immigration that they're not considering.

IMMIGRANTS BUY STUFF.

They rent apartments. They buy food. They get haircuts. They go to the doctor.

All of that stuff takes LABOR to produce. Native-born labor!!
Read 11 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Thread. Super-COVID is coming. Better step it up with those vaccines!
See also this thread:

And this one:

Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
30 Dec 20
The U.S. has now vaccinated at least 0.7% of its population.

bloomberg.com/graphics/covid…
Israel, meanwhile, vaccinated about double that percentage in ONE DAY.

And to all the reply-guys saying "Oh but Israel is the size of New Jersey", realize that New Jersey has vaccinated ~0.5% of its population.
Read 5 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
28 Dec 20
I wanted to understand more about the COVID-19 vaccines and the future of the pandemic.

So I interviewed the great @VirusesImmunity for my blog!

It was hugely informative.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-dr…
2/Some excerpts from the interview!

Dr. Iwasaki on why we shouldn't be very worried (at least, not yet) about new mutations making vaccines less effective:
3/And here's Dr. Iwasaki on the ultimate fate of COVID-19:
Read 7 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
27 Dec 20
Thread.

Immigration doesn't reduce wages. But for the people who want to stop immigration, the facts don't matter. Halting immigration is an end in and of itself, and they will reach for whatever justification they can in order to justify that end.
The other justification people will reach for is "immigration is bad for the environment". Basically, the Trump people won, and succeeded in making even liberals and leftists wary of immigration, and everyone is looking for a theoretical reason to pause it.
I've been saying this for a year or so now -- The pro-immigration side has lost, despite the polls showing increased support for immigration. Trump and Miller won. Immigration will bounce back a bit under Biden, but the recent era of openness is now over.
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
26 Dec 20
1/Who will put $600 to better use -- Scrooge, or Tiny Tim?

A Christmas economics explainer.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/should-you-g…
2/A few people claim that Scrooge would put $600 to better use, because he'd save the money, which would increase investment, which would make society richer, instead of consuming in the present.

3/And there are still some people who fixate on the idea of rich people's personal thrift as the key to building up productive capital.

wsj.com/articles/in-de…
Read 16 tweets

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