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Coronavirus Relief: Use Kristi’s “Surplus” to Incentivize Vaccination?

Last week Governor Kristi Noem told the South Dakota Legislature that we have $224 million in one-time money to spend during this fiscal year. That ridiculous and unprecedented “surplus” is fabricated entirely from the federal coronavirus relief dollars that Governor Noem has refused to deploy in actual coronavirus relief.

Odds are that, just as occurred during our October Special Session, our visionless and spineless Legislature will rubber-stamp all the planes and rodeo barns and whatever else Governor Noem wants to buy with that money.

But maybe we can find a way to meld the state’s urge to sit on coronavirus money (how many millions are we still making in interest on the federal cash Kristi has stowed in the bank?) with one ultimate hurrah for coronavirus relief… by speeding the relief we will all feel when we eradicate coronavirus.

Consider that Dr. Anthony Fauci says that we can reclaim a big chunk of normal life if 80% of us get the coronavirus vaccine:

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based campaigns likely to start in the second quarter of next year, then the U.S. should reach the herd immunity threshold months later. If vaccination levels are significantly lower, 40 percent to 50 percent, Fauci said, it could take a very long time to reach that level of protection.

“Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before” [Alvin Powell, “Fauci Says Herd Immunity Possible by Fall, ‘Normality’ by End of 2021,” Harvard Gazette, 2020.12.10].

Public willingness to get the coronavirus vaccine is going up (71%, up from 63% when the vaccine was just a hope in September). Even the South Dakota Republican Party is promoting the coronavirus vaccine.

But let’s not take a chance on any complacency or anti-vaxxerism delaying our reliable herd immunity and our ability to go get wings and root beer without putting lives at risk. Let’s turn that $224 million in one-time money into good-time money, a promise to pay South Dakotans for crushing coronavirus. Put that money in a lockbox (next door to Kristi’s Fox News studio, so she can check on it daily) and tell everyone we’re not opening it until 90% (let’s go big for once!) of South Dakotans have gotten their double-shot coronavirus vaccine. Then, one month later, we distribute that cash evenly to every vaccinated South Dakotan and declare a statewide holiday, giving everyone one full week off work. We wait a month so South Dakotans will have time to buy plane tickets and line up AirBNBs and campsites and plan a nice family getaway. The cash distribution wouldn’t be huge—about $280 per vaccinated South Dakotan—but that’s nice mad money for a well-deserved and finally safe vacation.

Wouldn’t that be a relief?

6 Comments

  1. jerry 2020-12-17 21:28

    trump/republicans have screwed us yet again on the vaccines. We got’m but we can’t get them.

    “Some major problems are already emerging in the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the federal government is not providing any good answers.

    The early warning signs:

    At least twelve states are reporting cuts in their initial allocations of doses.
    One governor is reporting that the total number of doses projected to be available nationwide has been cut by four million monthly.
    The vaccine maker reports it is not having production problems and says it has doses in warehouses, but is awaiting direction from the federal government on where to send them.” https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/what-has-happened-to-the-promised-doses-of-the-covid-vaccine

    GNOem has no intentions of making vaccine available to the majority of South Dakotan’s. This has always been the plan, herd immunity. January 20, 2021 cannot come soon enough for some real leadership. GNOem should be in front of the Hague for what she has done.

  2. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2020-12-18 05:50

    Dang, Jerry: maybe there’s there’s less need for incentives for South Dakotans to get the vaccine and more need for incentives for the Trump Administration to get out of its post-election sulk and do the work. The vaccine makers and scientists are doing their part; UPS and FedEx are doing theirs; why aren’t the feds delivering?

    But maybe we should have seen this coming. Trump has delegated all pandemic response to the states, because he doesn’t want to work and doesn’t know how to work. Now when we reach the part of the plan that demands national coordination, Trump can’t do the math and the logistics. He seems determined to sustain the American carnage he has created to the bitter end.

  3. Mark Anderson 2020-12-18 17:30

    My wife photographed me standing by a neighborhood kristi gnome who has a Santa suit on. She was so cute, she couldn’t kill anyone really. Unlike your Noem.

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