The leadership of Greensboro and Guilford County don’t seem to be sure why Guilford County was shorted over 11,400 vaccines this week and don’t seem overly concerned about it.
But a lot of people in Guilford County are concerned and upset about Guilford County once again getting the shaft from the state.
Former Greensboro City Councilmember and former Chair of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Mike Barber is incensed that, as he said, “The state risked the lives of 11,000 people in Guilford County so it could save the lives of 11,000 in Mecklenburg County for the publicity stunt of a mass vaccination event.”
He said, “It points to the level of respect our community has in Raleigh and it’s also a slap in the face for Cone Health.”
All the vaccines headed for Cone Health were redirected to Mecklenburg County, along with some for the Guilford County Health Department.
Barber said, “The only reason to do this is political. What happened is inexcusable.”
He added, “This was a decision made at the highest levels of our state and everybody in the Greater Greensboro community should see this and realize what kind of stature we have when they are making decisions like this about us in Raleigh. Over the past four or five years, the leaders of this community have done everything they could to alienate the state legislature and the executive branch in Raleigh and our citizens are going to suffer and some may die because of that.”
Barber said, “Thank goodness for Commissioner Justin Conrad. It appears he is the only one standing up for our community.”
Barber said that he believed the state was going with the mass vaccination events because they received more of a publicity splash. He said he was sure the press releases were already written about how many people they vaccinated in Charlotte before they knew where they would get so many doses of the vaccine.
As it turned out they got the vaccine from Guilford County.
Simply rescheduling over 11,000 appointments is a massive task and although it has been reported in the media that people with appointments for their second vaccine were not affected, that is not true. What is apparently true is those who were scheduled for their second shot got rescheduled first, but they still had to be rescheduled.
Finally, Barber said, “Someone should have to explain why 11,000 people in Mecklenburg County are more valuable than the 11,000 people in our community who did not get the vaccine.”
How is that news? You should have just said, Mike barber is running for city council. What an easy issue to tackle too. Mike is making a return to the election circuit should have been the headline.
As usual Guilford sucks hind teat to CharlotteCharlotte-Mecklenburg.
Jimmy
Vaccine distribution problems are a national disgrace — some working with national distribution were ready to go first week in December. Sadly the former President and his pandemic team had no plan ready for distribution. If there was a plan please show the national press. Thank you to County Chair Skip Alston and others for pushing hard to get a fair distribution. There is no shortage of outrage.
The federal government does NOT determine the distribution locations, amounts, when and how, etc. All of that is determined by the state and local governments. We still live in a “republic” and if you don’t understand the term “republic”, you need to do some homework.
Where you are wrong, Joseph, is that the federal government DOES provide guidance about distribution. Do the conceptual math. The NATION has 50 vaccine doses. Every state plans to give out 10 doses of the vaccine. While those are great plans, only 5 states (at best) could successfully do that. Now, if the federal government provided appropriate guidance to say “we have 50 vaccines so each state will only get one”, that states could actually plan accordingly.
However, when your upper management continuously says things like “This is going to go away without a vaccine” (May 8), implying we could start distributing vaccines by the end of September or October (September 16) including that we’d have 100 million doses by the end of the year (we actually only had about 20 million), and then goes completely silent when they get fired from their job (you can blame twitter, but even without it, the guy had the biggest platform in the world, period), it’s really difficult to blame the state and local governments for not having a clue how to handle this, i.m.o.
We still live in a democratic republic. Don’t forget that first part. Democracy fired our boss.
Hey Stan, looks like to me another of disposable Joes failures is being blamed on the former POTUS. Fact is Joe never had a plan. Just a continuation of the same negative narrative of the past four years.
What does Senator Tillis have to say about this. Silence again I’m sure
Most useless human to inhabit a Senate seat. Frankly both of them are a disgrace, but at least one is gone next election.
Well I certainly hate that we got shafted, somehow, it seems fitting that the Democrats at the state level shafted the Democrats in Guilford County.
Funny thing is that any vaccination event is a mass vaccination event. The system, no matter who is running it, gets jammed up as soon as the word goes out that a particular class of people can get (try to get) an appointment. The playing political games with this vaccine is one of the most shameful things that the liberals have ever pulled off.
My opinion is (and I could be wrong), is that Raleigh is doing to Guilford county what Guilford City and County is doing to us. Just a thought….
Dumb & Desperate in NC
It’s far past time for Mike to change parties. He has far too much common sense to remain a Democrat.
As you already, and so correctly, stated Mr. Barber, our top city leaders have alienated our state legislators with all but petty and threatening endorsements for various “woke” agenda items that are not helping a damn sole in Greensboro. We deserve better leadership in Greensboro and Guilford County. Why don’t you consider running for public office again? I cannot guarantee you how many of us are paying attention and truly understand what is going on – but most citizens with any common sense will gladly vote for you. As for myself, I have not been able to vote for several years. However, I am encouraged by recent developments involving questionable changes to election laws that may allow my vote to count in the future. Please give serious thought to running for public office again. You are greatly needed!
Sounds to me the leadership that needs to be identified and HOUNDED until we get those 11,000 doses lives in RALEIGH, if that’s where the decision was made. Would be nice if we know who, what, when, where and how that happened…..names named, etc.
Allocations should be proportioned and distributed mathematically, based purely on populations of targeted ask-risk elderly and healthcare providers. No leader should take away needed vaccines from a community based on the public relations efforts of another community. This is where a simple artificial intelligence algorithm could be used to great effect. Considering the NC house composition is 8R and 5D it looks like blaming one party for this injustice is disingenuous. Thanks to Mike Barber for his efforts to secure fair treatment for Greensboro.
This has infuriated me. My husband is 72, has heart disease and COPD. We were 2 of the 10,400 whose appointment were canceled.
However. We have relatives in Charlotte that are 51, work from home and they got their vaccine.
Grrrrrr….
The good thing is . . .Roy Cooper is on his last term in office. The state was responsible for ensuring their allocations of the vaccine was distributed to various locations in NC. Does that tell you something? When you hear the words . . . “Hello, I’m from the government and am here to help you”, run for the hills.
If the Governor of North Carolina happened to be a Republican what do you think the Board of Commissioners and the City Council would be saying??
Characteristically they would be saying that we are responsible for 10, 000 deaths. Very sad situation that the democrats would play politics with someone’s life.
The democrat city council would be lambasting the government, and there would be organized riots in the streets . . .time to “get some stuff” by the hoodlums, etc.
I am so tired of the stupid expressions that comes out of the Dems mouth every 4 years – it could be a recording since the 70/80’s :Republicans are fascist,facist,xenophobic and this all Republicans are terrorist and should not be allowed to work or hold a voted on public job .I have lived in NC above 70 years and I think at the end of an election season that things can’t get worse but the Dems manage to up themselves with something new. I heard this stupid house member say that a Republican house almost had her Murdered Jan 6.Our current group of Democrats are the most snobbish ,conceded,and they will belalie before the truth,or tell one of their own.
Coop is part of the system that has to be the one snubbing Greensboro.You voted him in now you got to live with it Also you voted in Joe so live with those high gas taxes coming to you and federal taxes/as well.Are you missing TRUMP yet!!!!!!!?
Sounds like we are playing politics with old peoples lives. I am on of them!!