Ellu,
Boring night, MLB, NHL and NBA are unwatchable on TV until the playoffs. Not in the mood to binge watch or watch a movie. So bouncing internet sites is where it is at. Caught up on the Gators spring battle for back up punt snapper. So here is a long response to your earlier post regarding the State of Florida's outstanding Governor
IMO your above essay puts an overly high emphasis on politics and optics and grossly underestimates the importance of infrastructure and logistics in an endeavor like this. Especially coming from the backdrop that vaccinations, not just vaccine distribution, are a life or death matter. And that getting as many people vacinated as quickly as possible will save the most lives and therefore must be the over riding goal.
Publix is UNIQUELY qualified to handle this triage level situation in the State of Florida. A year ago, no one had ever seriously planned for or thought of how to rapidly vaccinate millions of Floridians with a vaccine that did not exist for a pandemic that was unknown. To quickly mobilize this wartime level implementation requires an extraordinary rapid organization of logistics, trained medical specialists, distribution, equipment (e,g, refrigerated storage andtransportation), geographic assets, rapid creation and implementation of digital systems and mobilization/coordination/management of a large labor force.
Each of the above subjects are specialties of Publix, for which white papers could be written for all. Let's just take one and condense into a brief paragraph.
The distribution and implementation of the Covid vaccine has significant digital challenges. This endeavor requires a complete and real time digital record of shipments of doses from pharmaceutical manufacturers to Florida distribution. Many IT systems must coordinate. This is not a one size power cord fits into a single tyoe of wall socket endeavor. This process then rolls down the line from Manufacturer to likely multiple warehouses to trucks to many physical locations. At each step each dose of vaccine must be tracked. This is not setting out kegs and cups at a frat party. Multiple people must input this data at each step into various input types (handheld and back office, etc.) that sychronize. Then comes the digital tracking of who gets the vaccine and who gives it. And remember there are eligibility requirements and appointments that must also be accounted for. People could just show up and roll up their sleeve. Then there is transmission of this data to various local, state and federal governmental and medical databases and agencies. This is a huge challenge. I am truly surprised the State has handled the IT side as well as it appears they have.
Publix, by the nature of its business had the frameworks for many of these digital requirements in place. Actually it is remarkable that they have been able to get as much accomplished as quickly as possible. As to the heartburn as to being the sole distributor, Publix was quickly distributing product to CVS and Walgreens, far and away Florida's two largest pharmaceutical retailers. But those two orginations were focused on their distribtion to hospitals and medical facilities. Hospitals and medical facilities do not have their own warehouse capabilities. They rely on just in time providers like CVS and Walgreens. This fact refutes the 60 minutes bogus insinuation that only Publix was involved in putting needles in arms.
As to the evil Publix getting the sole Florida rights, that goes back to meeting the core mission of as many needles in arms as quickly as possible. For the State of Fl;orida to have to work with saymany more IT organizations would have only delayed implementation of vacinations. IT skills of this level do not grow on trees. This is not changing a screen saver stuff I I will refraim from a snarky comparison to lawyers. While Walmart would certainly have the capabilities and has significant retail presence, though not nearly the same level of locations in Florida; I did not see Walmart volunteering for this endeavor. I would imagine that Walmart is heavily involved in other states and their IT stack is full. And I can tell you from personally working within other Walmart/distributor IT data interchange projects, nothing happens quickly at Walmart.
The large scale logistical challenges referenced make Governor Ron DeSantis absolutely the right man at the right time for Florida. His military background in rapid deployments to address new challenges is clearly evident. Watch him at a news conference. He has complete knowledge and command of multiple complex subjects that he can answer on the fly without pre knowledge of the questions or note cards. Can anyone really imagine Biden attempting to personally handle a situation of this complexity and then speak to a hostile press. He would have started drooling and gone into a fetal position.
So now on to the posted article and the dumb little twit Melissa McKinlay. She makes Marjorie Greene look like a Rhodes Scholar. Nothing she said had anything to do with the core issues discussed above. She was just jumping on the political hack bandwagon attempting to raise her profile. She got her lame 15 minutes of fame
And now to the Pahokee issue. I have been to Pahokee on both business and football. Everyone should go to a HS football game in Pahokee. Great people and a great environment. Obviously people want to make a racial issue because there is not a Publix in Pahokee. There is not a Walmart, Winn Dixie, Walgreens , CVS or McDonalds either. Pahokee is an ole time small southern agricultural town. An effective statewide distribution plan for vaccines can not be built around a Pahokee model. But as seen in the link below and as Governor DeSantis said this morning, Pahokee has a strong advocate in his office:
www.flalottery.com
I have read that specific accomadations were made for Pahokee and some other areas in western Palm Beach County..
So to conclude Governor DeSantis is doing a great job. 60 minutes, an iconic show when I was growing up, has become a silly little partitsan joke. And Melissa McKinlay should move to North Georgia and run against Marjorie Greene for congress.