> You’re opting for a strategy that leads to more Black deaths and more white deaths than the “vaccinate seniors first” strategy, but deciding that it’s better for equity and this is what ethics requires.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...
Key slides:
23, Population-Wide Averted Deaths: Targetting the elderly over essential workers averts up to 6.5% additional deaths (~12% compared to ~5%). This accounts for network effects. That's hundreds of deaths per day.
31, ethics scoring rubric: diversity concerns net the essential worker approach two additional points over the elderly approach, not one as you claimed.
33, overall rubric: the elderly approach was favored until ethics was considered, where, driven by diversity concerns, the essential worker approach was granted 3 overall points as opposed to 1 for the elderly approach.
And the craziest thing is, at no point in the rubric is "fewer people will die" considered a pro on the part of the elderly-first approach.
Preventing deaths has been the goal from the very beginning. This abrupt switch from "we have to save as many lives as possible" to "who cares about total deaths?" is exactly the kind of "progressive" political advocacy that you denied existed at the very beginning of this thread.
For the record, I'm on the side of "save as many lives as possible" and have been since the very beginning.
I agree with you so far...
> That is where the essential worker argument comes into play.
This is where you lose me. As I understand it, essential workers can continue working whether or not they're vaccinated (yes, some will get seriously sick, but it won't significantly impact the economy). Rather, we want to vaccinate them earlier than non-essential workers because they're more vulnerable by the riskier nature of their work. However, they're not more vulnerable than the elderly and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.
The key point here is that essential workers have a much greater exposure to COVID and much less control over the degree to which they are exposed to COVID. Most elderly people don't work. Those that do (and don't qualify as essential workers) can work from home. It is much easier for these people to minimize exposure. None of this logic has anything to do with race or any other form of diversity. None of this logic is questioning the fact that COVID is more dangerous to the elderly if they contract it. It is simply recognizing that from an ethical perspective it is likely fairer to prioritize the vaccine for people who are least able to minimize their own risk of exposure.
>and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.
Diversity factored into 1 of 3 subcategories in 1 of 3 top level categories. It isn't fair to say the "CDC recommends prioritizing [essential workers] over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white" when it is just one piece of a much larger and more nuanced discussion.
