The Sunday Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the state of Georgia has been provided with 700,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, and that to date we have managed to inoculate only 227,000 Georgians. That’s about a 32 percent success rate.

Yet when I go to the Covid-19 vaccination appointment web page I am told that “we are completely out of vaccine” and that the call center cannot take any further appointment until January 19th. We closed the vaccine appointment center during a pandemic to take a day off?

We tout Georgia as a great place to move to and live; a great place for business. But we cannot find a system to inoculate our population in a pandemic?

Right now, according to the CDC, Georgia is inoculating 2,180 per 100,000 residents. Florida is vaccinating about 3,900; Mississippi about 2,800; and West Virginia 7,400 per 100,000. Do these states have such better public health systems than Georgia?

I would like to suggest this to Governor Kemp: If by next month your Department of Health leadership cannot get the inoculation rate up to at least what Mississippi is doing, terminate every state and county official who is failing in this effort and appoint their deputies to take over their jobs.

If those in turn cannot do their job, terminate them also and try someone else in the department who might be able to accomplish this mission.

If you cannot find anyone capable within the Department of Health to administer this program successfully, I suggest that you contract this vaccination program out to a healthcare provider who can do the job or at least study the West Virginia model and see if it can be applied to Georgia.

We are paying millions of dollars in salaries to individuals who cannot do their jobs or maybe are not qualified to do their jobs. We have had almost a year to get ready for a vaccine and we are telling Georgians we have run out of vaccine and cannot keep a call center open on a holiday.

Let’s find some folks who can do the job.

P. T. Pearse

Fayetteville, Ga.