UK Core Issue: How Do We Distribute Covid Vaccines?

 

How Do We Distribute COVID Vaccines?

The issue of distributing a vaccine when there are limited resources is challenging; there are multiple factors that must be considered. Assuming there are only enough vaccine for a third of the county population, firstly we must consider population density.

In this map provided by social explorer, we can see the population density of Fayette County. Overall, we can see most of the density belongs to the University of Kentucky. Population density is an important factor in distribution of vaccination because vaccines must be administered to those that can provide herd immunity to the rest of the inhabitants of an area. In simpler terms, to be most effective, one must administer vaccines to people who come in contact with the most amount of people in order to attempt to contain the virus and protect those who may not be able to obtain the vaccine as well. Looking at the current population of Fayette as of 2019, there are around 323,152 people living in the county. This means we have roughly 100,000 vaccines to be administered. The University of Kentucky states that "UK's campus now covers more than 716 acres and is home to more than 30,000 students and 14,000 employees". If a vaccine were to be administered to all staff and all students, this would account for around 45,000 of the 100,000 vaccines, which in my opinion could be done. Students account for a large amount of disease spread due to living in close proximity in dorms, going to classes and sitting in large lecture halls, participating in Greek life and going to parties, etc. It would be important to firstly deliver the vaccine to those living in resident halls because of their extreme close proximity to one another and the high density of people in one building. After this, it would be important to administer the vaccine to any other students living on campus, whether that be Greek housing or those living in houses and apartments near campus for similar reasons. I would then distribute the vaccination to all staff members at the University of Kentucky because the students come in contact with them often. As for athletes, I would put focus on them next because competing with different teams around the county could easily lead to a breakout infection back at Kentucky. Finally, I would then give vaccines to everyone else that did not fit into any of those brackets last. 

Now that the vaccine has been distributed to everyone that participates on campus, we need to worry about those who live in Fayette that do not go to University of Kentucky. We need to look at some contextual factors about the county of Fayette. What jobs have the highest number of people coming in contact with one another? How with the poor receive the vaccine if it is not affordable? Those that have less income can effectively contribute to the spread of a disease due to less frequent medical related appointments, less health care, and more time spent working (more contact with others due to less free time). So, I looked up the most frequent/common jobs in Fayette county and found that "The most common employment sectors for those who live in Fayette County, KY, are Educational Services (26,024 people), Health Care & Social Assistance (24,068 people), and Retail Trade (21,649 people)". I would distribute vaccines to medical professionals so that they do not easily spread the virus (roughly 25,000 people). Our vaccine distrubtion number is now at 70% of our total allotted vaccinations. I would now vaccinate those working in retail trade because they come in contact with a huge amount of people every day. We are now around 91,000 vaccines distributed. I would then distribute the rest to students at the high school level or lower, which would account for almost the rest of the allotted vaccines. 

COVID-19 and Media

 

COVID-19 and Pop Culture

    COVID-19 has lead to a lot of change in our everyday lives. One aspect of this change that is many times overlooked is the influence on popular culture. Social media has had a lot to say about the virus and has seen a large shift in importance in our lives as we are stuck in isolation, using it as an escape from the world around us.

Instagram Clip of YouTube Celebrity Danny Duncan

Social media shapes the way in which we see the world around us. In this example, we see an internet celebrity Danny Duncan, a comedic YouTuber, poke fun at the virus. When the lady in the video asks where his mask is, he lightheartedly pretends to not know that there is a pandemic among us and asks her to put hers back on as a joke. Although as funny as it is, this can be dangerous for society. Danny Duncan has a pretty young, impressionable audience. With this audience, he could easily lead them into believing that the virus is somewhat of a joke and does not have to be taken seriously. Yet, at the same time, there is a place for comedy in a time where we are constantly surrounded by bad news. 

Though, the social media and pop culture change due to COVID-19 has not just been in the United States, it is global just like the pandemic. In the article "How Coronavirus Is Affecting Pop Culture Around the World" by James Gereby, he talks about the impact the coronavirus has had on the wildly popular K-pop band BTS. He writes, "BTS has canceled four South Korean tour dates starting in April that were initially supposed to kick-off the group’s Map of the Soul tour. There are more reported cases of coronavirus in South Korea than there are anywhere except China, with more than 4,300 confirmed". At the time of March 2 when this was written, their whole tour had been postponed, leading to a lot of concern from fans who were eagerly awaiting a performance. 

A Change in Diet

How COVID-19 Has Altered My Eating Habits

By Zachary Reboletti

Student at University of Kentucky

September 11, 2020

    It is not surprise that COVID-19 has made a serious impact on our nation. Economically, businesses have struggles to adapt to such an immense change. Socially, there has been a huge change in how people interact. With these changes, one change gets overlooked quite often: diet. In the United States, our diets a heavily influenced by the fast food industry and eating meals at home has definitely become less prevalent. COVID-19 has had a direct impact on restaurants, especially in the beginning phases of the virus, and lead many of them to close for a long time. 

Many stores have converted to online order and delivering to limit the spread of coronavirus.

    Because of this, my diet and my family's has changed a lot. We definitely ate at home much more often. In terms of healthiness, I feel as though we have been eating healthier. Usually we would eat out often which normally would not be the healthiest option, but since more meals had to be prepared and eaten at home, we have gotten healthier products like fresh vegetable and meats. Although, we also have started to eat more frozen meals due to their easy convenience, which is not a very healthy option. 

   I'd say overall, we have started eating healthier, but I definitely started eating less in general. I usually make my own lunch, and since I am a pretty lazy person, I would often go out and buy fast food because of the convenience. Since COVID-19 started and fast food places closed momentarily, I would simply skip meals because I didn't want to make food at home. As a result, I feel like I lost a bit of weight which is unfortunate because I have been trying to gain weight. Along with this, I would resort to eating a lot more snacks because of this laziness. Now that I am in college though, I have been eating much more because of how easy it is to go to the dining hall and get a bunch of food. Since I don't have a lot going on as well, I have started working out more and eating more in general in hopes of gaining more weight. 

Dorm Visitation Policy at University of Kentucky

 

Dorm Visitation Still Restricted

Disappointing News from Kentucky

By Zachary Reboletti

Student at University of Kentucky

September 7, 2020

    Today I just received an email about the visitation policy change at University of Kentucky. It reads as follows:

A snippet of the email sent out to University of Kentucky students on September 11, 2020

    This is obviously quite disappointing to see. Today was supposed to be the first day that we were allowed to go to other people's dorms and be able to meet more people and even have people over ourselves. For a while, I have been wanting to have a couple friends over to watch the NBA Playoffs in my dorm because it has the most space. I have not been able to do this yet, though, due to the restrictions on the visitation policy. This is pretty tough for me personally because I have not met too many people so far, and this would have been an opportunity to meet more people. Although this is not the best news, it is an action that must be taken to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. With many schools going to fully online, Kentucky has been taken action to ensure that spread of the virus is limited. If the situation looks to continue, maybe they will open up visitation more, but we will have to see. It is honestly too soon to make a judgement because the school year did just start a couple weeks ago. Hopefully everyone continues to be safe and wear facial coverings, washing their hands, and to keep maintaining 6 feet of distance over the next couple weeks while the university decides on further action. 

Who Can We Trust?

A Reflection on Current News

By Zachary Reboletti

Student at University of Kentucky

September 5, 2020

    Every day, we are flooded with information whether it is from out laptops, cellphones, or televisions. Especially now more than ever, the current political climate is enhanced by a increasingly polarized media. It can be very tough to find a reliable, unbiased, and trustworthy news source with talks of "fake news" and politically-charged narratives filling up much of the information we obtain. 

    This can be a huge problem during a pandemic when reliable information is what we need the most. As citizens, it is our responsibility to stay informed on what is going on around us and act accordingly in order to be the best citizen we can. It seems that information can be easily skewed and distorted to make an audience believe that certain demographics are at fault for outbreaks and that one party is the reason for this pandemic, when in reality there are layers. This whole idea of the pandemic being politicized it truly dangerous because of this exact reason: people need unbiased and reliable information during a time of need. 

    I tend to be skeptical of any news that I watch, and this why I carefully examine all the evidence presented to me when watching any news channel. I often ask myself, "what motives does this news station have" or "what bias may they be trying to convey". Normally, I stay away from CNN because historically I have found them to be very left-leaning in their ideology which leads them to often times push a narrative. This same mentality goes for Fox News as well, even though I grew up watching this with my family being in a Republican household. Even though I agree with their ideology, I can understand that they also are pushing a narrative. In times like these, I find it inappropriate to use this pandemic as an outlet to push any narrative that is not health related. Recently, I got a subscription to New York Times for my GEO261 class, and I have been reading some of the articles, yet I can also see some left-leaning bias in their news as well. It definitely is more moderate, though, so  have been using them for a lot of information. Plus I should be using what I pay for of course. 

    A couple months ago when I lived in Illinois, though, I watched the CBS Chicago to gather information from Governor Pritzker. For months, he had daily COVID-19 updates where he would speak and answer questions live to inform the public. He brought with him health officials that would talk about the current numbers and speak on their personal advisories. I didn't necessarily agree with everything Pritzker had to say, but I tuned in for the daily COVID-19 cases and wanted to understand what new policies would be in place. Above, I attached a snippet from a recent hearing on his expansion of mask rules for restaurants and bars. Sometimes I feel like Illinois was a lot more laid back in their coronavirus policies, and I saw this first hand when working in the restaurant industry. Here in Kentucky, I see everyone wearing a mask, even outside, and this was completely different from Elmhurst where almost no one wore masks outside. Maybe this could be a reason why Illinois seems to have a higher number of cases overall, but as I said before, there are so many different factors that go into this that make it hard to put blame on one particular aspect of policy. 

    

 

 

The Future of COVID-19 at Kentucky

My Thoughts

By Zachary Reboletti

Student at University of Kentucky

August 28, 2020

Stickers displaying messages of "Stay 6 feet apart" can be found scattered around the ground around campus, encouraging students to maintain social distance to limit spread of the coronavirus. 

    Many other large schools in the United States have started taking necessary action against the coronavirus by moving all classes to online. The most recent instance of this happening was a few days ago when University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill moved all of their classes online due to an outbreak just one week into the school year. I have friends that are apart of the Greek community at Indiana University in Bloomington and they have many concerns with facing the same consequences. Apparently, around 50% of all Greek life has been infected with the virus. Soon, they may even need to move out of their house and find other living arrangements. This could pose many problems for students participating in Greek life, especially my friend Gracie. She is very worried that she will have to move home, which is not a possibility for her because her mother has cancer and will have increased susceptibility to the virus is she brought it back. 

    Hearing all of these stories and knowing how important the social aspect of campus is for students (whether that be going to football and basketball games or participating in greek life and clubs), this definitely worries me. At this point, all of my classes have been moved to online. I have the opportunity to attend one class in person every Friday, and although I should be grateful that I have that opportunity, it just does not feel the same. At this point, I do not believe that we will go all online, but I do have my concerns that restrictions will become increasingly stringent on what we are allowed to do in person. Currently, we have stickers all over the floor around campus indicating how much distance we should be from each other (this is especially apparent in the food court because of limited ventilation indoors and increased virus spreading capabilities), yet I do not think that these are that effective. It seems like many students disregard them entirely, especially when busy or in a hurry. Along with this, I have heard of many dorms having parties during this time and getting busted by the Resident Advisors around campus. This is definitely not a good looking seeing as though we only have a week left before we are allowed to start visiting each other in different dorms. I just hope that the deadline (September 7) will not be rescheduled for a further date. 

    Either way, I am very lucky to even be able to be in a dorm right now typing this. Several of my friends are extremely distressed because they may not even be allowed to move on campus. My friend Eli is currently applying for a special housing at Michigan State University so that he may be allowed to stay on campus instead of doing his work online at home. He has already made friends and was very excited to go back to school, so we will see how that plays out in the coming days.