This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 5th, 2021. I'm Caleb Brown.

The vaccine against COVID-19 was developed largely by private industry and arrived quickly enough, but the rollout of vaccines

has been slow and entirely controlled by the federal in-state governments.

Cato's Jeff Singer suggests an alternative approach that would mean fewer vaccine

doses ending up in the trash. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that hospitals have been receiving the vaccines and for either it seems

tossing out vaccine or giving vaccines to people who are not in this highest

tier priority list for receiving it could be potentially fined tens of thousands or a hundred

thousand dollars if they do it that way it just seems to me that that's not a recipe for getting more vaccine into people's arms.

No, it's very, it's sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation as well. So if you have leftover vaccine, these vaccines,

once they're defrosted for use, they have a very short shelf life. In fact, the vials that are used to draw out the actual dose to give to someone. Once they're used, once they're punctured with the needle you have about five hours before you have to

discard it that's just the way the vaccine is made it doesn't keep so you have the

situation where there are people who maybe are not showing up because they're

in a priority group and they're not showing up because they're not interested.

Some people for different reasons.

Some are afraid, some just aren't interested,

then various reasons why people are not taking advantage of the vaccine.

And so now they got this vaccine that they have to dispose of by the end of the day.

And other people who might be really anxious to get that vaccine would love to have it.

They're not allowed to get it.

So it gets thrown out. That's a paradox.

That's sort of what happens, you know, in Central Planning. Anybody who realizes the problems

that are associated with Central Planning shouldn't be surprised to learn

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