Editorial: All hands on deck for vaccination rollout

Why isn’t there one coordinated plan to navigate the rough waters of the coronavirus pandemic?

It isn’t that government doesn’t know how to work together in a disaster, pulling all hands together and tugging on the rope as one to get something done. It absolutely does. The Federal Emergency Management Agency trickles down to the state counterparts and from there to the county and local organizations for a big event. For a smaller one, the needs are handled at the low end with the appeals for help floating up.

Generally, our disasters are more of the “batten down the hatches for a few days” kind of thing. We brace for hurricanes. We wait out floods. We clean up after tornadoes. But those are here and gone. It isn’t surprising that a pandemic heading into its second year is uncharted water.

That was why there wasn’t a coordinated plan. It doesn’t explain why there still isn’t one. As we approach 11 months, there has been plenty of opportunity for not just the federal government to better outline a flow chart of authority and responsibility, but for the state to do the same. And if the state hasn’t done so, the counties could have.

It’s a better-late-than-never situation. If there wasn’t a good plan while waiting for the vaccine, the approval of the shots and the need to distribute them seems like it was the perfect time to do so. Some areas have been better organized — especially those with their own health departments like Allegheny County.

Others, like Fayette County, have taken steps toward a more coordinated response.

But some, like Westmoreland County, have lagged behind. On Tuesday, the county announced a website with a list of vaccine providers and a link to the state’s site with similar information. Commissioner Sean Kertes — who contracted covid-19 and suffers from ongoing complications — said last week that he expects his board to have some preliminary talks about what the county government can do to help with vaccine distribution.

These are talks that should have been held before county hospitals started distributing the vaccine in mid-December. They should have been held in the fall when reports about the success of multiple companies’ trials was thick and the question wasn’t when there would be a vaccine but whether it would come before the election or after it.

More than 13,000 Westmoreland residents have had at least one vaccine dose administered. And now, as the issue with distribution is there is little to distribute, the county leaders are considering how to move forward?

“If and when the state asks for our assistance, we absolutely will provide it,” Commissioner Gina Cerilli said. “However, the state has not asked for recommendations for big distribution locations throughout the county.”

The state should not have asked. The state should have involved every county — whether they had a health department or not — in the process, because every boat goes further and faster if the rowers are all pulling their oars in a coordinated fashion.

But counties shouldn’t sit in their boat, heading toward the rapids, oars in hand, complaining the state didn’t tell them what to do.