PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Several months ago, I had a simplistic notion as all of us began confronting the Covid-19 virus.

The notion was clear and simple, if not obvious:  The key to getting past the virus would be vaccines.

Some of my friends may say they believe many of my notions are simplistic.  And I often could be accused of citing the obvious. 

But, this time, it turned out that the simplistic notion was not so simple after all:  Getting vaccines to Americans has been very difficult…unfortunately.

Along the way, we learned several things:

• If he gets some credit for prodding the development of vaccines, former President Donald Trump gets debit for mismanaging vaccination processes.  He said there were vaccines reserves; there weren’t.   

• So, when President Joe Biden ruled that reserves should be released, there were none.

• That meant states would have difficulty arranging vaccine distribution without clear indications about supplies.

• It could be contended that, in the absence of clear federal instructions about distribution, states should have been prepared with their own plans.  They weren’t.

• Of course, no distribution plan would work if there were not enough vaccines, either for those who deserve early doses — health care workers, teachers, and the aging population – or for the population in general.

So, here we are.  No clear or firm distribution plans in any state, including Oregon.  Information changes almost daily. 

Biden took steps last week to deal with under-supply by ordering – and paying for – millions of new vaccine vials.  Still, that won’t produce sufficient supplies quickly enough.

With my wife, Nancy, our travel through vaccine processes verifies the dead ends. 

What happened was this.

About three weeks ago, we stumbled on information that suggested vaccine givers at the State Fairgrounds in Salem, Oregon were able to use ”extra vaccines” for folks not otherwise eligible.  Extras were available, I surmise, because not as many health care workers as expected showed up to get vaccines.  So, in an attempt to avoid wasting vials of the vaccine that were out of the deep freeze, workers passed information by word of mouth and communication grapevines that some “extras” were available.

I heard this first from my daughter-in-law, a teacher, who went down to the Fairgrounds with a friend, not a teacher, and managed to get two vaccines.  I quickly passed information to my friends in Salem and, in the space of a couple weeks, nearly all of them were able to get vaccines at the Fairgrounds.

Folks in the Portland area were not as lucky.  Neither were others around the state.

And, here in La Quinta, California (where we are spending part of our winter), we have tried to get vaccines for those 65 years of age and older, but, so far, we have missed out on booking appointments.  For all we know, our on-line attempts missed by mere seconds.

Back in Oregon, Governor Kate Brown is coming under heavy criticism for deciding teachers will get vaccines before old persons.  She has defended herself by saying that, if the reverse were true – if old folks came before teachers – reaction would have been just as negative.

As Brown put it in a column by Dick Hughes, former editor of the editorial page of the Statesman-Journal (when it had one);

“No matter what you do, people aren’t happy,” Brown said. “The teachers in Minnesota are furious at the governor because they are doing seniors first. And here, the seniors are furious at me because I am doing teachers first. There are no right answers, and there are no easy decisions.”

She is right in the sense that those making vaccine distribution decisions face life-or-death decisions every day and cannot make the “right ones.”

So, my wife and I have not received the vaccine and, in that way, we are like millions of others. 

Thus, my simplistic notion – vaccines were the panacea – was not as accurate as I hoped it would be.