The Vaccine Rollout Is a Disaster [OPINION]

Why is Charlie Baker's administration driving the over-75 crowd to the internet to book appointments for a COVID-19 vaccine? Most people I know that are over 75 years old have a pretty difficult time with the internet. Many don't even have computers.

And why is Joe Biden's administration insisting that the enemy combatants stashed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, more affectionately known as GITMO, receive the vaccine before your 80-year-old grandmother, simply because she still resides in her own home and didn't blow up the World Trade Center?

This vaccine rollout is the most bizarre example of government inefficiency that I have ever seen. We've handled mass vaccinations before, and it has never been this much of a circus. The government has beaten common sense to the curb and kicked it.

Give the vaccine to private industry and let it conduct mass vaccinations. Pitch large tents, outfit school gyms, civic centers, and convention halls and have at it. Keep them open 24 hours a day, seven days a week as long as supplies last, and let people get vaccinated.

Let the National Guard in each state work with the U.S. military to deliver and distribute the vaccine all across the country. Get the politicians the hell out of it.

Massachusetts prison inmates and drug addicts have already been inoculated, but a 97-year-old World War II combat vet who lives on his own near Springfield had to fight for special permission to be taken to Hyannis to receive a shot. Why? Who the hell knows? It's crazy.

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell can't even say when the next shipment of the vaccine will arrive in the city and how much we will get. That is how sad all of this is.

Would the grown-up in the room please call time out, get the government out of the way and then get this process moving again in the right direction?

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.