FT 18.08 Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act (Statute)

[Anna Komnene]

A BILL
To promote large scale vaccine distribution in Frémont.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of Frémont assembled;

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act.

Section 2. Targeted Advertising Campaigns to Promote Vaccination
1. ## shall be allocated for targeted public advertising campaigns to encourage residents of Frémont to get vaccinated for covid-19, with the goal being to maximize support for vaccination among targeted groups and also the general population.
2. These campaigns will be highlighted by a selection of medical doctors, first responders, scientists, community leaders, religious figures, and cultural role models that target groups considered most likely to listen to the message of each figure.
3. Targeted campaigns will make use of television, social media, other internet, and print mediums.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include people who work in health care settings considered at high risk of exposure to infectious disease, residents and workers in long term care facilities, and first responders in high risk areas.
2. The second phase will include all health care workers, first responders, essential workers, individuals over 65, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Section 4. Vaccine Distribution Infrastructure
1. ## shall be allocated for the purchase of orders of FDA approved vaccines for each phase of distribution and equipment designed specifically for those vaccines to be provided for approved distribution centers and storage facilities.
2. Healthcare workers at approved distribution centers must be trained to properly store and administer the vaccine to patients.
3. A central website will be designed and maintained for the purpose of streamlining registration and appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, as well as organizing distribution centers with servers built to withstand heavy traffic from across the region.

Section 5. Effectiveness
1. This act is effective immediately upon its passage in parliament.

Sponsor: Siren

The floor is open for debate.

[Anna Komnene]

After checking out Lumine's update on the pandemic, I thought it would be a good idea to get the ball rolling on promoting and distributing the vaccine in our region. The main problems I was concerned about tackling with this bill are increasing the popularity of the vaccine itself, so more people want to get it and making sure we have the infrastructure necessary to actually use the vaccines when they're ready.

I got the idea for targeted advertising campaigns, thinking about how different communities feel about the pandemic itself. While I would prefer we live in a world where everyone trusts the consensus in the scientific community, that's sadly not the one we live in - so I tried to come up with as many ideas as possible to reach people that might be skeptical and change their mind.

The infrastructure is fairly self explanatory. The main thing is just making sure we have everything we need for an orderly process without any hiccups. And I'm not necessarily dead set on the priority schedule if people have different ideas. But I thought it would be best to just get the ball rolling on this, so we can hopefully get something passed in the near future. Feel free to add anything you think is best.

Edit: I left the allocation open because I wasn't sure on the cost. It will likely be pretty high, at least on the distribution end.

[Anna Komnene]

Oh this is a helpful post from our FM/also AG. We'll be able to fine tune our bill with the federal guidance (probably should have discussed it privately before, sorry about that!) Great news that we have three approved vaccines to prepare for distribution anyway.

Department of Justice
Re: COVID-19 vaccination rollout

As of January 14, this administration has undertaken the following actions regarding supply and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine(s). These orders, republished here for reference by regional legislatures undertaking their own measures to facilitate the vaccination of their citizens, have already been relayed to the relevant federal departments on the aforementioned date.

The Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines are approved for use in Atlasia.

Vaccination will be mandatory without a doctor's exemption for a valid medical reason.

For rollout, from highest to lowest priority:

1. Healthcare, education, and service workers
2. School-age minors and senior citizens
3. Everyone else

[YE]

What is considered an essential worker?

[Anna Komnene]

What is considered an essential worker?

I'm thinking we'll amend the distribution priority to match the DoJ order, so healthcare, education, and service workers would have the highest priority. Maybe we could expand on the definition to clarify if we want to.

Anyway, for me it would include something like this: hospitals, EMTs, nursing homes, medical practices, first responders, teachers, pharmacies, grocery and food stores, food production and distribution, shipping services, public transportation, household supply stores, construction, gas stations, and banks. I'm probably leaving things out.

[Anna Komnene]

For now I'm going to introduce an amendment to mirror the federal priority order until we get opinions on whether we want to clarify the definition for essential workers in phase 1 or other issues. I left the exception for people with medical issues in for phase 2 because I felt like they should have priority over healthy people.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include people who work in health care settings considered at high risk of exposure to infectious disease, residents and workers in long term care facilities, and first responders in high risk areas. healthcare, education, and service workers.
2. The second phase will include all senior citizens, school age minors, health care workers, first responders, essential workers, individuals over 65, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

[YE]

Unless this is different from IRL, school age minors haven't been approved for the vaccine yet.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Per the addendum to the administration's vaccination policy, until further testing is complete, only children over 12 years of age will be able to get the vaccine.

[Anna Komnene]

Thanks for the update Truman.

I'm withdrawing my previous amendment and introducing a new one to clarify the 12+ issue.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include people who work in health care settings considered at high risk of exposure to infectious disease, residents and workers in long term care facilities, and first responders in high risk areas. healthcare, education, and service workers.
2. The second phase will include all senior citizens, school age minors aged 12 and up, health care workers, first responders, essential workers, individuals over 65, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Also I was doing a little digging for cost-estimates. I found a letter from the Association of State and Terrestrial Health Officials where they outlined a request for vaccine distribution to congress in that "real life" simulation. Keep in mind that we'd be responsible for less as a region (divide everything by 3 I guess?).

https://www.astho.org/Federal-Government-Relations/Correspondence/ASTHO-AIM-Funds-for-Vaccination-Distribution-Letter/

Specifically, $8.4 billion for COVID-19 vaccination distribution plus $500 million for seasonal influenza
campaign operations would support the following:
• $3 billion for workforce recruitment and training for state and local health departments.
• $1 billion for state and local vaccination infrastructure improvements.
• $500 million for Immunization Information Systems (IIS) data modernization.
• $700 million for reporting on vaccine coverage, effectiveness, safety, and evaluation.
• $1.2 billion for cold supply chain management which includes transportation, storage,
equipment, and training for staff.
• $500 million for Emergency Use Authorization regulation and oversight.
• $500 million for outreach to priority populations, communications, and educational efforts to
increase vaccine confidence and combat misinformation.
• $1 billion for standing up additional vaccination sites.

We can probably reduce it further using our judgment on the things we think we actually need from that list. Or the things that fit this bill. Like in my first readthrough: workforce training, infrastructure, data/info, cold supply management, outreach, and vaccination sites seem most relevant.

So it looks like we could be looking at a spitball estimate of 2 billion for infrastructure and 150 million for outreach. Maybe higher or lower based on what we think is really needed.

[Anna Komnene]

The previous amendment is adopted. Here is a new one to add in allocation numbers and make things a little more specific about the infrastructure plans.

A BILL
To promote large scale vaccine distribution in Frémont.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of Frémont assembled;

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act.

Section 2. Targeted Advertising Campaigns to Promote Vaccination
1. ## $100 million shall be allocated for targeted public advertising campaigns to encourage residents of Frémont to get vaccinated for covid-19, with the goal being to maximize support for vaccination among targeted groups and also the general population.
2. These campaigns will be highlighted by a selection of medical doctors, first responders, scientists, community leaders, religious figures, and cultural role models that target groups considered most likely to listen to the message of each figure.
3. Targeted campaigns will make use of television, social media, other internet, and print mediums.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include healthcare, education, and service workers.
2. The second phase will include all senior citizens, school age minors aged 12 and up, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Section 4. Vaccine Distribution Infrastructure
1. ## $2 billion shall be allocated for the purchase of orders of FDA approved vaccines for each phase of distribution and any cold supply and other equipment designed specifically for those vaccines to be provided for approved distribution centers and storage facilities, including upgrades for current facilities and construction of additional facilities as needed.
2. Healthcare workers at approved distribution centers must be trained to properly store and administer the vaccine to patients.
3. A central website will be designed and maintained for the purpose of streamlining registration and appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, as well as organizing distribution centers with servers built to withstand heavy traffic from across the region.

Section 5. Effectiveness
1. This act is effective immediately upon its passage in parliament.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

How did the allocation for outreach go from $150 million in that previous post of yours to $100 million in the amendment?

[Anna Komnene]

I was feeling like $150 million seemed high for an outreach campaign, so I lowered it. Do you have a preference?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I don't have a particular preference, I was just asking because it felt weird.

[Anna Komnene]

Mostly I was thinking about the money spent on US Senate campaigns and how there seems like a point of diminishing returns (like Amy McGrath, Jaime Harrison, etc).

It got me thinking about how much we'd need to do a region wide outreach campaign for this. We do have states like California and Washington where it would definitely be expensive but also states like Wyoming and the Dakotas where it is probably less pricey. Ironically, there's probably a higher proportion of people that need convincing in those less populated states just by demographics - I'm not sure how that interacts with the cost-estimate tbh. That was how I got down to 100 million. I wouldn't be opposed to raising it though.

[Anna Komnene]

The amendment is adopted.

This is one of those bills where we don't want to rush it and miss something, but we also want to get it done asap to get the program rolling. So everyone try to think over if there's anything you'd like to see changed/added over the next day or so.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Siren asked me to take a look at this and inquire about regional grants. I don't believe we ever rolled out a federal vaccine distribution plan, but I'll ask in the COVID Discord server I set up when we were writing the first stimulus. This is definitely something the feds should be ahead of the regions on.

As for cost, that's something we'll need the Comptroller General for.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

For those who are interested, here's a link to the COVID server. Feel free to drop in with your questions, comments, and ideas, because that will be our drawing board for the federal plan.

[Mike Thick]

Truman actually has set out some guidelines in conjunction with Lumine to govern this whole process.

Department of Justice
Re: COVID-19 vaccination rollout

As of January 14, this administration has undertaken the following actions regarding supply and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine(s). These orders, republished here for reference by regional legislatures undertaking their own measures to facilitate the vaccination of their citizens, have already been relayed to the relevant federal departments on the aforementioned date.

The Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca vaccines are approved for use in Atlasia.

Vaccination will be mandatory without a doctor's exemption for a valid medical reason.

For rollout, from highest to lowest priority:

1. Healthcare, education, and service workers
2. School-age minors aged twelve (12) years and older and senior citizens
3. Everyone else

DoJ and its associated agencies will move forward with tests for children 12 and under with all due haste.

edit: modified with permission of the game moderator, 26 Jan 2021 - HST

However, I agree that more federal support is needed, and we should start hashing this out in Congress as soon as possible.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Indeed, that post has been quoted in this thread twice now. My office at the DoJ rolled out those guidelines literally within hours of the vaccine being available for distribution in-game, though they were published for the benefit of the general public more recently. At this point I've done everything that is within my power on this issue in my federal capacity, hence my support for this legislation.

As for funding, I think we can all agree that the key component here is speed. Would it be such a bad thing to draw the necessary funds from our own surplus now, and stipulate that if a federal grant comes along later we will use that money instead? That way we can begin distribution as soon as possible and reimburse the treasury later if Congress decides that grants are appropriate.

[Anna Komnene]

Thanks for your comments and advocacy in the federal govt Sen. Scott and VP Ted. I appreciate it.

I agree with FM Truman that we want to get this passed ASAP. Like I said, I was planning to move for a vote soon as long as everyone was happy that we're doing this the right way. I'm not sure if a stipulation to accept federal grants is necessary to receive them, but it couldn't hurt to include it just in case.

So here's my proposal. I'm introducing an amendment pre-emptively accepting any federal grants and because I assume that's not controversial, I'm also moving for a final vote. That way if there are no objections, we can get things rolling in 24 hours.

A BILL
To promote large scale vaccine distribution in Frémont.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of Frémont assembled;

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act.

Section 2. Targeted Advertising Campaigns to Promote Vaccination
1. ## shall be allocated for targeted public advertising campaigns to encourage residents of Frémont to get vaccinated for covid-19, with the goal being to maximize support for vaccination among targeted groups and also the general population.
2. These campaigns will be highlighted by a selection of medical doctors, first responders, scientists, community leaders, religious figures, and cultural role models that target groups considered most likely to listen to the message of each figure.
3. Targeted campaigns will make use of television, social media, other internet, and print mediums.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include people who work in health care settings considered at high risk of exposure to infectious disease, residents and workers in long term care facilities, and first responders in high risk areas.
2. The second phase will include all health care workers, first responders, essential workers, individuals over 65, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Section 4. Vaccine Distribution Infrastructure
1. ## shall be allocated for the purchase of orders of FDA approved vaccines for each phase of distribution and equipment designed specifically for those vaccines to be provided for approved distribution centers and storage facilities.
2. Healthcare workers at approved distribution centers must be trained to properly store and administer the vaccine to patients.
3. A central website will be designed and maintained for the purpose of streamlining registration and appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, as well as organizing distribution centers with servers built to withstand heavy traffic from across the region.

Section 5. Additional Funding
1. Should a federal grant pertaining to the programs enumerated in this act become available, it shall be accepted.

Section 5 6. Effectiveness
1. This act is effective immediately upon its passage in parliament.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I have no objections whatsoever. Let's roll this out!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Excellent!

Though I think the speaker forgot to include the most recent amendment in this latest version of the text. Those pound signs should be numbers, right?

[Anna Komnene]

Excellent!

Though I think the speaker forgot to include the most recent amendment in this latest version of the text. Those pound signs should be numbers, right?

Whoops! Yeah I accidentally just latched it onto the original text. This should be the most up to date version.

A BILL
To promote large scale vaccine distribution in Frémont.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of Frémont assembled;

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act.

Section 2. Targeted Advertising Campaigns to Promote Vaccination
1. $100 million shall be allocated for targeted public advertising campaigns to encourage residents of Frémont to get vaccinated for covid-19, with the goal being to maximize support for vaccination among targeted groups and also the general population.
2. These campaigns will be highlighted by a selection of medical doctors, first responders, scientists, community leaders, religious figures, and cultural role models that target groups considered most likely to listen to the message of each figure.
3. Targeted campaigns will make use of television, social media, other internet, and print mediums.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include healthcare, education, and service workers.
2. The second phase will include all senior citizens, school age minors aged 12 and up, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Section 4. Vaccine Distribution Infrastructure
1. $2 billion shall be allocated for the purchase of orders of FDA approved vaccines for each phase of distribution and any cold supply and other equipment designed specifically for those vaccines to be provided for approved distribution centers and storage facilities, including upgrades for current facilities and construction of additional facilities as needed.
2. Healthcare workers at approved distribution centers must be trained to properly store and administer the vaccine to patients.
3. A central website will be designed and maintained for the purpose of streamlining registration and appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, as well as organizing distribution centers with servers built to withstand heavy traffic from across the region.

Section 5. Additional Funding
1. Should a federal grant pertaining to the programs enumerated in this act become available, it shall be accepted.

Section 5 6. Effectiveness
1. This act is effective immediately upon its passage in parliament.

[Anna Komnene]

The amendment is adopted and with no objections, we'll now have a final vote on this bill. Members please vote AYE, NAY, or ABSTAIN.

A BILL
To promote large scale vaccine distribution in Frémont.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of Frémont assembled;

Section 1. Title

This legislation may be cited as the Covid-19 Vaccine Promotion and Distribution Act.

Section 2. Targeted Advertising Campaigns to Promote Vaccination
1. $100 million shall be allocated for targeted public advertising campaigns to encourage residents of Frémont to get vaccinated for covid-19, with the goal being to maximize support for vaccination among targeted groups and also the general population.
2. These campaigns will be highlighted by a selection of medical doctors, first responders, scientists, community leaders, religious figures, and cultural role models that target groups considered most likely to listen to the message of each figure.
3. Targeted campaigns will make use of television, social media, other internet, and print mediums.

Section 3. Vaccine Distribution Priorities
1. The first phase of vaccine distribution will include healthcare, education, and service workers.
2. The second phase will include all senior citizens, school age minors aged 12 and up, and individuals from 16-64 with medical conditions considered high risk of severe complications by the Center for Disease Control.
3. The third phase will include the general population.

Section 4. Vaccine Distribution Infrastructure
1. $2 billion shall be allocated for the purchase of orders of FDA approved vaccines for each phase of distribution and any cold supply and other equipment designed specifically for those vaccines to be provided for approved distribution centers and storage facilities, including upgrades for current facilities and construction of additional facilities as needed.
2. Healthcare workers at approved distribution centers must be trained to properly store and administer the vaccine to patients.
3. A central website will be designed and maintained for the purpose of streamlining registration and appointments for the covid-19 vaccine, as well as organizing distribution centers with servers built to withstand heavy traffic from across the region.

Section 5. Additional Funding
1. Should a federal grant pertaining to the programs enumerated in this act become available, it shall be accepted.

Section 6. Effectiveness
1. This act is effective immediately upon its passage in parliament.

[Anna Komnene]

Aye!