Intentionally or not, President Joe Biden's suggestion that the US government should send people "door to door" to boost COVID-19 vaccination numbers launched a wave of concern. Does the federal government know who's been vaccinated and who hasn't? Is it going to get pushy with those who haven't? Is this some surveillance state fuckery? Etc.
US Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN that it "is absolutely the government's business" who's been vaccinated and who hasn't, because the government used COVID-19 as an excuse to spend trillions of (our) dollars. Then he complained that he'd been "taken wildly out of context" and insisted that the government "has no database tracking who is vaccinated."
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki characterizes the door to door idea as a way to "get remaining Americans vaccinated by ensuring that they have the information they need on how both safe and accessible the vaccine is."
If we (very provisionally) trust Becerra on the "no database" claim and Psaki on "information" claim, it sounds like the idea is pretty much going to be Jehovah's Witnesses for the vaccines -- people knocking on doors and handing out brochures so that everyone knows there are vaccines, knows a little bit about them, knows how to get them, and knows that they've already been paid for with their tax dollars and that there won't be some kind of payment demanded at point of service.
Of course, everyone who lives in a place with a door to be knocked on (as opposed to under a rock deep in the forest) already knows there are vaccines, knows a little bit about them, knows how to get them, and knows that they've already been paid for with their tax dollars and that there won't be some kind of payment demanded at point of service.
So, what's the point?
I suspect the point is really just to offer a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of temp jobs -- at $15 an hour or better -- a la the census, as a way of further "stimulating the economy."
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