What has happened, both nationally and locally, is that Covid has exposed the vulnerability of our medical infrastructure. We were not prepared to mobilize our national healthcare systems to handle a national emergency like covid. Simply put, infectious diseases have expoded.

It's not just covid anymore. That's a problem. We currently don't have the staffing capacity to handle another covid event, and no one really knows what this fall's RSV surge is going to look like. That's really where the problems start. Pharmacy vaccinations are way up. They are the cheapest (for me) and by far the most convenient. By now, those that have gotten hit hard by covid, especially those hit hard more than once, are tired of hearing the "I feel like I got lucky" stories from the vaccinated and are beginning to put two and two together. People getting vaccinated this fall seem to be doing so in greater numbers than they have in recent history.

And that's a good thing. Except, we really don't have the staffing at the pharmacies to handle this problem. And here's the immediate problem. Typically, our Health Department has been extremely proactive in stepping up at times like this. Mass vaccination events are a function built into it's infrastructure. Typically we would have these events in the summer as circumstances dictated. Many of you are probably going, "oh yeah, I remember my Mom hauling me down for shots." We hated it. We're not doing that anymore.

And that's a bad thing. Nationwide, pharmacists are staging walkouts. They are trying to get their point across. I think I should point something out that a lot of people seem to miss. Growing up, when we saw these jobs being performed was where we formed our dreams. Not every kid wants to be a star and some would look for other things in their life function. They saw empathy and compassion in nurses. Now, they see stress, exhaustion, and fear for their life. When we saw pharmacists we saw a stress free existence grounded in peace and happiness. Now we're looking at corporate takeovers and neverending problems. The problem is not just that we're burning them out and running them off, the problem is that that's what the people that would normally be drawn to these jobs see too. I'm 64 years old. This is the generation of healthcare workers that's going to take care of me.

Net result locally is this. Since the start of Glenn Jacob's hostile takeover of the Health Department and subsequent dissolution of The Board of Health, giving him full control of the Health Department's budget, the functional level of the Health Department has been dramitically lowered. We have downsized by government action our hospital staffs and now we are going after the pharmacies by eliminating the Health Department's high profile role in promoting vaccinations. The private sector simply hasn't co-ordinated to handle this sort of time demand and the Health Department has abandondoned that role and fired the experts they had in charge. We have no one in a public leadership or government position to even, or even anyone with knowledge and experience leading, this sort of situation. We no longer treat public health crises in terms of pulic health concerns. They are now political events to be exploited.

And this is what it's like to have a front row seat in the community that's leading the charge on how to destroy your medical infrastructure. Folks, this will continue to deteriorate for the forseeable future.

Definitely remember John Karnes. He was also a neighbor.