This is really distressing, especially considering the ongoing public behavior of the original founder. Kicking out Paul seems like the opposite reaction for YC to have. It would be helpful to hear a public comment from them about this situation.
Glad to see ycombinator shut down these outrage trolls.
I drove someone to what I suppose was one of these clinics. Was pouring rain. They had shots left over. Clinic staff said please get a shot. The one problem - their form didn't have a spot for leftover shots, so they had to lie about my eligibility.
These doses are ones that otherwise be thrown away. At that point, it is more ethical to give a shot than not. The situation others are discussing is not that.
Giving context as someone who has worked on COVID vaccination sites. The above isn’t common knowledge so can be misconstrued.
I'm not going to necessarily trust that reddit comment, especially when I know there were plenty instances of people lying about eligibility, and I think it is largely unlikely that most YC founders would have been eligible for this mobile clinic in west Oakland in mid-March.
- Lying to jump the queue, ahead of people who need it more is trashy, selfish, should be not just discouraged but heavily reprimanded.
- A lot of the vaccine distribution is awful and disorganized. This often leads to vaccines being thrown away.
- SHOTS IN ARMS. A vaccine in someone is better than a vaccine thrown away, even if it's not optimally distributed.
"Just showing up" is a thing here in Belgium as well, and I expect many countries. Here in Brussels for example for a while the major vaccination center had time and stock for 1000 shots a day, and so would plan for 1000 shots distributed per day and invite … 1000 people for that day, not one more. Over snail mail or SMS depending on where you lived. And 75% were going unused, and they were wondering why.
So yeah, we can spend time talking about how they should know better, overbook, etc but in the mean time vaccines were being thrown away and the distribution was slowing down. So people just showing up speeds that up, and is a net gain.
And yet, people complain and are outraged, claim the people showing up are skipping the queue, and I frankly wish they'd shut the fuck up about it.
If indeed Paul was denouncing someone who was bragging about jumping the queue or encouraging people to do so by revealing how they're Hacking Society™, that's just absolute trash and it's completely disgusting.
If he's complaining about an instance of someone saying "There's unused vaccines in centers, show up at the end of the day and you can get one", then have at it.
I'm not in YC / the forum in question, I've no idea, can't form an opinion. But yeah, needinfo.
I think getting vaccines to the elderly at a slightly slower rate at that time was deemed better than getting vaccines to exclusively much younger people at a somewhat faster rate.
As a fraction of the whole, there were not that many wasted doses (Oakland wasted ~0.39%, and most of those were not in these mobile clinics).
> If he's complaining about an instance of someone saying "There's unused vaccines in centers, show up at the end of the day and you can get one", then have at it.
Absolutely agreed, there were plenty of people doing this, it's totally ethical, but I don't think that was what he was referencing, as it was quite accepted in the Bay at the time.
The only problem with the three points you list is that the first and third are contradictory. We were literally throwing away vaccines here in the United States if they could not find anyone eligible to vaccinate.
They're not. To be honest I'm kind of baffled why people keep equating the two in their heads. I don't want to be "that guy", but use your imagination.
Example 1: Low-risk person forges papers to claim they're high risk or in a situation that justifies getting a vaccine Right The Fuck Now, subsequently jumping through a bunch of hoops to get a spot in a highly crowded queue.
Example 2: Person shows up at the end of the day in a vax center that is throwing away 50 doses if they can't get them in arms before people go home.
Example 1 is someone being trashy and selfish, stealing a vaccine from someone who might be able to get it today, result mostly negative. Example 2 is not stealing anything, but rather preventing a vaccine from being wasted and thus a net positive result.
Again, i don't have any more facts than before, it's still his word against the other's. But jumping on anyone's defense here is absurd unless you actually do know more (eg. You saw it unfold in the forum)
It is unclear what the tweet is discussing. I don't see any clear statement from Paul as to what exactly he is alleging was done.
One the the people who Paul is posting these allegations about did reply here and notes that they informed the staff they qere not CA eligible, waited 4 hours, then got the shot.
It was not explicitly stated that these were shots that would have been wasted, but the 4 hour wait (if true) would seem to imply that.
> the 4 hour wait (if true) would seem to imply that.
To me, it implies extremely high demand - and likely the shots would not have been wasted.
I’m assuming you aren’t familiar with how these walk up sites in the Bay worked? Multiple hour long waits were common because of how high demand was in the area.
Might be a letter of the law vs. spirit of the law sort of a situation.
AFAIK, the FEMA mobile clinics were meant to boost vaccinations in underserved communities. So they go to one of those communities, set up shop and then jam the needle in as many arms as they can find.
I don't know but it's completely possible that as long as you are there and you are 18+, you will be eligible for it. However, since it's meant to vaccinate underserved communities, you were probably not supposed to be there if you live somewhere else.
YC isn’t the moral police of when one should get a vaccine (nor should they be). YC are the police of other YC community norms, they owe nobody an explanation.
