| 
Lawrence General Hospital nurse Delana Asaro pre-draws doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine before administering them on Jan. 11, 2021. Photo by Pat Greenhouse | Boston Globe Staff / Pool
After a rocky start to the state’s vaccine rollout, Gov. Charlie Baker is slowly clawing his way out from the bottom of an epic media pig pile.
Tech–challenged senior citizens were forced to log into multiple sites and fill out all sorts of documentation in an often-fruitless bid to secure a spot in line at a vaccination center.
Topping it all off, the state’s online vaccine site crashed.
Baker, a former top health insurance executive, also relied too heavily on the state’s big-name hospitals to get shots into arms.
While our world-renowned hospitals are great at research and cutting–edge care, relying on them to provide assembly-line style vaccinations was a mistake as well and likely contributed to the slow start.
Yet barely more than a week after the humiliating website crash, Massachusetts, an initial laggard, had climbed the charts to claim the No. 8 spot by percentage of its population with at least one vaccine shot, at 16 percent as of last week.
That was ahead of California, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Florida, according to the New York Times.
Of the major industrial states, only Connecticut has a higher percentage.
No doubt about it, Baker made some mistakes, and he certainly deserved more than a few of those negative headlines.
After all, it doesn’t get more important than this. The future of the Massachusetts economy, and most certainly its now struggling commercial real estate market, hinge on getting this right.
Yet the coverage of Baker’s handling of the crisis in our state’s leading news outlets – the two Boston-based public radio stations and the Boston Globe – was long on harsh, snapshot judgements and short on big–picture context.
If all you had to go on was the news coverage here in Massachusetts, you’d hardly be blamed for thinking that Baker had inexplicably morphed overnight from a dull but dedicated technocrat to an incompetent of Trumpian proportions.
Yet we don’t live in regional news silos, anymore.
Anyone with a relatively cheap online subscription to the Washington Post and The New York Times – or the patience to slog through the headlines on Google News – can instantly get the bigger picture of how governors across the country are handling the vaccine rollouts and dealing with pandemic issues in general.
Compare Mass. to Other States
By that wider standard, Baker’ recent stumbles look, if not par for the course, certainly not the worst on the block, either.
Just check out this letter to the editor.
“Where I live, the distribution of the vaccine is disgracefully chaotic,” writes a one Stanley J. Weinberg. “One has to be computer savvy, and can spend hours looking for a distribution site, providing personal information, proving that you’re not a robot, to learn that no appointments are available, try again.”
Sounds just like one of the many complaints that flooded in after Massachusetts launched its online sign-up system, but it comes from the pages of the Times.
It was, in fact, in reaction to a New York Times story on the state’s own turbulent vaccine rollout, “‘Vaccine Hunters’ Fan Out for Shots They Can’t Get Near Home.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who won high ratings for his earlier handling of the pandemic, also apparently didn’t do much better than Baker on the vaccination front.
Cuomo is also now dealing with a scandal over deliberately leaving out thousands of COVID-19 nursing home deaths from the state’s official tallies of the epidemic.
That’s truly troubling.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has been on the hot seat as well after a slow vaccine rollout in her state, which, she argued, was due the targeted nature of that state’s initial effort.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf also took criticism for his state’s initially slow pace of vaccinations, while Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has been hit with criticism the state is not doing enough to prioritize vulnerable minority groups.
But Florida Gov. Ron Desantis takes the cake, openly bragging about Florida having no vaccination plan at all amid a free-for-all that has everyone over 65 competing for a spot in the vaccination line.
Media Must Look Deeper
The problems that plagued the Bay State’s vaccine rollout have far deeper roots than the leadership of any single individual, and that, more than anything else, is where the news coverage has failed.
The crashing of the Baker administration’s vaccine online sign-up site simply begs for an in-depth look as to why the technology used by state government is often so woefully inadequate.
Scott Van Voorhis
The outdated and outmatched technology used by state government in Massachusetts has long been a huge problem, extending to the unemployment system and the courts, among many other agencies and functions.
Yet it’s more than just an IT issue. Rather, there is also a deep-rooted dysfunction in the culture of state government in Massachusetts and, in some cases, in its role as a patronage dumping ground for friends of powerful state lawmakers and governors alike.
Yes, Baker is important, and his administration should expect the highest scrutiny.
But it’s also time to hold the legislature and the state bureaucracy to the same standard.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
