Outrageous Covid 19 vaccine recommendation
 

The recommendation below is admitted to result in more total deaths especially for the elderly and medically impaired but none the less was forwarded to the CDC.
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The committee typically relies on science to inform decisions, but this time, social justice concerns have come up as well.

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times essential workers should be prioritized over older adults because "Older populations are whiter."
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Post-Vaccine Outlook
The Elderly vs. Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?
The C.D.C. will soon decide which group to recommend next, and the debate over the trade-offs is growing heated. Ultimately, states will determine whom to include.
Updated Dec. 15, 2020
With the coronavirus pandemic surging and initial vaccine supplies limited, the United States faces a hard choice: Should the country’s immunization program focus in the early months on the elderly and people with serious medical conditions, who are dying of the virus at the highest rates, or on essential workers, an expansive category encompassing Americans who have borne the greatest risk of infection?

Health care workers and the frailest of the elderly — residents of long-term-care facilities — will almost certainly get the first shots, under guidelines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued on Thursday. But with vaccination expected to start this month, the debate among federal and state health officials about who goes next, and lobbying from outside groups to be included, is growing more urgent.

It’s a question increasingly guided by concerns over the inequities laid bare by the pandemic, from disproportionately high rates of infection and death among poor people and people of color to disparate access to testing, child care and technology for online schooling.

“It’s damnable that we are even being placed in this position that we have to make these choices,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, a co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national coalition that calls attention to the challenges of the working poor. “But if we have to make the choice, we cannot once again leave poor and low-wealth essential workers to be last.”

omg, it sounds like some kind of gag

Being whiter isn't the issue. As explained here, the probability of being impacted by the virus is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...racial-equity/

You are wrong. It has everything to do with race. If you look at the actual numbers and percentages, they completely correspond to the population of the country. This particular virus is age related, not so much race related. Believe me, I have experienced in my lifetime way too much of this racial equality stuff to know it when I see it.

Just so you know, I have been denied jobs, because I was white.
I have been denied promotions, because I was white.
I actually heard a black manager over the phone say: "I wouldn't hire that white B****h if my life depended on it.

By the way, they made no bones about telling me that was the reason for the various jobs and promotions.

"If you look at the actual numbers and percentages, they completely correspond to the population of the country."

Incorrect. Please take the time to read the link.

"Haywood County, a majority-Black community not far from Memphis, has one health department, one nursing home and no hospitals. The fatality rate of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is 50 percent higher than the state average.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group has signaled it will recommend prioritization of certain essential workers, in part to address racial disparities exposed by the pandemic. People of color are overrepresented in industries such as food processing and transit, in jobs impossible to do from home."

As for your anecdotal experience, how many more people of color do you think have experienced the same exact thing in their lifetimes?

I am truly thankful that it is not my decision. Any choice made will be criticized. Ethics and so many of the things we argue, oops discuss, are impossible to define. The declaration of independence. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Powerful words. What do they mean? We can all discuss-argue. We will quickly realize different things to each of us.

The vaccine. Much of what we are being told does not make sense. We are told 94% effective. The flu shot is like 60% effective in a good year. Covid 19 is a virus. Viruses quickly mutate. Months ago I read somewhere that there were then 94 different strains of covid 19. If that was true then it has mutated exponentially. A radio story this morning.
Covid 19 perhaps as in Florida is spreading more rapidly than expected. The story, if correct, said it is a new strain.

What to do? You can only do the best you can. Teasing a bit-don't blame me. I chose not to be in charge.

You can't use the flu to draw conclusions about the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines or the impact of mutations on their efficacy.The mutation characteristics are different between the flu and the coronavirus. Some viruses, such as measles, are pretty stable where it matters so the vaccine continues to work. The developers are expecting the vaccines to be viable for a longer period of time than the flu vaccines. How long? We will see. There is a lot of information available about the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines.

Not entirely, but it's all we have in general. COVID-19 has mutation characteristics closer to H3N2 influenza than H1N1 strains. But this vaccine is so different from traditional "flu shots" that we are in uncharted territory. Early studies based on 42,000 test subjects showed a 95% efficacy (162 in the placebo group contracted COVID, 9 severe as opposed to 8 in the treatment group, 1 severe)

So one guy, the professor at U PA makes a racial statement and as usual the media presents it out of many other more important options to present.

And then it is picked up by some and turned into a general condition.

The elderly are most vulnerable to dying when contracting the virus. And yes, like every other statistical presentation there are more whites......Hmmmnnn......whites are 76.3% of the total USA population.

Thank you so much that over the years you have said the same thing over and over and I HAVE LISTENED about being so fixated on the miniscule in conversations, in politics and in life that we are ignoring all of the things that have already been put in place to make things to me anyway, MORE THAN FAIR.

On this issue, early on, my uneducated opinion was that it is entirely possible that some people with a certain blood type may get sicker or less sick with Covid-19. I have nothing to back this up. It is just a feeling, a hunch, a guess. We women have them all of the time.

I just quoted one person on the committee but the entire committee recommendation to the CDC is going to be to put white seniors farther back in the vaccination line based on social justice as they interpret it. Minorities in low paying jobs will skip ahead of us even though on average they recover instead of dying as many seniors do. If you are 80 or older your chance of getting covid19 and dying from it is 8 %. If you are black your chance is 0.1 %.

I believe the actual decision is left up to the states. I have already seen the Florida Plan and health care workers and those at risk are at the top of the list. Those 65 and over will follow.

One problem that I, personally, have on here is presentation of only a partial part of anything.

The quote in the OP is way out of context, and to JOHN41's credit, he attempted later to insure you know this was one man, who has a job title of "Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy" thus he brings his strength to the table in a very complex discussion.

The New York Times has a long, interesting article on the situation, and for the record, this professor has publicly stated since "Note: 1) never espoused race-only prioritization; 2) Key: many 65+ can live socially distanced safely, w relatively less inconvenience until vax. But far more among essential workers can’t, esp frontline workers.". This is from the professors twitter account.

This is complicated when trying to do what is right for the country, and this is why so many are frightened at the shoving aside of people, like scientists, etc. that have the knowledge and expertise to do this without the ramifications, and knee jerk responses we seem to be used to.

We can do it correctly, or we can allow outside influences screw it up also.

It was not a racial statement, and it was not presented improperly. It was presented on this forum as “outrageous” without any context. You take aim at the wrong people and YOU are the one making generalization. This is what happens when nobody cares about context, and are so ready to jump in what they think, with no investigation, may validate something they want to believe.

I would link The NY Times article, but you need a subscription, and the general media (I have seen it on NY Post and National Review, not known for context) but IN CONTEXT NOTHING “outrageous” at all. Academic discussion for the good of the country.

I must completely disagree with the premise of this thread. The gentleman in question sees things through a prism that accentuates so-called "diversity", ie: segregation of humans based on politically made definitions.

There is only ONE race, the HUMAN race. Time we started fighting back against the forces who would divide us based on false designations. Everyone will have access to the vaccines by March so no need to create a false narrative of "racism".

The quote termed “outrageous” was part of an important vital conversation relative to how to best serve our country.

It is being presented here totally and completely “on an island” which is outrageous in itself.

This is not something to be discussed by us amateurs and non professionals, and I think putting words out that do not reflect reality or truth is 100% wrong.

By the way, these kind of discussions always take place (and should) on varied subjects. Somebody decided to “stir the pot” and readers on this forum simply accented what they wanted to for whatever reason.