Thanks, Charlie: Black market in 75+ seniors springs up for Covid-19 shots

Pay a senior get a shot of love potion number 9. These are the descendants of the scoundrels on the Titanic who stole the seats on the lifeboats from women and children.

Seniors, generally the most ignored demographic, have suddenly become a whole lot more popular. Not that being ignored doesn't have it's benefits. I notice that ever since I reached a certain age (and I guess I must look it) those professional fundraiser pests never approach me on the street anymore. They look right through me to the next person.

Ah Charlie Baker, yesterday he was a hero for this, today he's a goat.

I think it's safe to say at this point that the myth that our governor was this brilliant healthcare manager type was blown way out of proportion even for a politician who desperately needed a backstory other than serving a brief stint in the private sector when he wasn't busy messing with public finances when serving as secretary of this and that.

To know that the day would come when vaccines would be available and meted out to the most age-vulnerable first as part of a nationwide plan and only have a half-baked plan that touted two sports venues of limited accessibility coupled with the failure of his mass communications strategy is downright criminal.

From the massive outbreak and deaths at the Holyoke Soldier's Home to the Craigslist scammers, the nation's favorite governor has proved that he's just a well-connected guy who found himself way out of his league when it came to crisis management at absolutely tone-death when it came to providing solutions to rectify the situation, knee-jerk reactions aside.

When faced with the opportunity of a lifetime, Charlie Baker turned turtle and only did the bare minimum when the noise became too much to bear inside his shell.

This just shows how isolated and desperate the elderly are to get shots - there should be buses picking people up to take them to get their shots, there should be panels of people helping them schedule appts. I just helped my Mom get her shots in NYS. Her calling her Dr led to nowhere. I got her a spot at a super site (45 min away) on 1/12 but the earliest date for her then was for 3/25 (the day before it was 2/26 so she was lucky to get that). I had to go to each pharmacy and sign up for email notices for when they received doses and by fluke was able to get her an appt for 2/3 (not from a notice either but just having the link and stalking). Appts are issued by this pharmacy in blocks of 3 days, appts every 20 minutes for 12 hrs - each time they post, all 84 appts (times however many outlets they have) disappear in about 15 minutes. If I wasn't helping her (from MA), she'd still be waiting to hear from her Dr.

The order of giving the shots are based on limiting the spread - if we can't get those people vaccinated, we aren't limiting the spread. I'm now trying to help my cousin get her elderly wheelchair bound mother on a list but going to supersite isn't good for her health (esp lining up outside) and none of the local pharmacies have any available dates. She's .25 mi from a senior center that supposedly a vaccination site but they have no doses to give so no appts. At least she has 2 computer savvy people helping her and willing to drive her to whatever appt we can scrounge up.

I don’t think anyone outside of 25-55 know what Craigslist is, let alone use it. To be honest most of the 50 plus users were looking for dates witty young people and that was 15 years ago.

If someone is technically savvy to use Craigslist at 75, they probably can use Uber or call a taxi for their ride.

FWIW Thus will help spread the vaccinations out and may help with the minority communities getting higher vaccinations.

The only downside - we can’t get a pretzel or a Fenway frank while we wait.

None of this would be a problem if the Massachusetts vaccination program wasn’t a total disaster.

The problem isn’t our allocation of vaccines from the Feds. It’s that we don’t have a functional system for giving the vaccines. The percentage of our allocation that’s been used is shamefully low.

Neighboring states have lowered the age to 65. We’re still at 75, and we can’t handle the demand.

Seniors shouldn’t have to travel miles to a giant place like Fenway Park where they need help to navigate. And they shouldn’t have to register on dozens of websites to see where there’s an appointment. They should be able to get the vaccine at their neighborhood doctor’s office.

These Craiglist ads are clickbait-worthy but I'm pretty sure 99.99% of the actual companions will be familial caregivers. Lots of seniors have adult children or grandchildren that aid them, especially now to limit the seniors' exposure to the public. This policy makes sense to innoculate both the seniors and their most direct contacts. The issue is not with this logical policy, but that Baker has slow rolled so much of this. We are way behind other states who have been vaccinating people over 65 and teachers for weeks! We should be making it easier to get vaccinated right now for as many people as possible