I've been waiting for this:
A month ago the CDC tried to prioritize essential workers along with the elderly, but they were met with a blizzard of mockery for, among other things, not focusing solely on the elderly. After all, that's nice and easy and it would save the maximum number of lives.
So now what do we get? Complaints that essential workers aren't getting vaccinated.
As for me, I'm only 62 and I work at home, so I think our big problem is not prioritizing cat owners. Why are we being overlooked?
They should have highly recommended getting vaccine to essential workers who can't work from home as the next priority after health care workers and those over 75, and never let the phrase "racial equity" appear in their documents.
There have been stories of work-from-home hospital administrators getting vaccines before those who actually work with patients.
Essential workers should be getting injections, but there is not a good way to define essential worker. Target grocery store workers, teachers, maintenance staff, and then expand out from there. Delivery, Uber, distribution networks, etc.
That's what California is trying to do, but that case about administrators was from Stanford, as they'd already sent home all the older essential personnel to handle the video medicine while the younger ones stayed in the hospital. And their system just didn't have that data.
So it won't be easy.
On the other hand, my mother got her first inoculation. She's 74 and works at the court as guardian ad litem and child special advocate, so she hasn't stopped working at all during the pandemic. Tho most of it was already work at home and now the court is, too, but not the home visits tho we've encourged her to farm as much of that out as possible.
People in essential jobs in positions that have the highest number of daily contacts should have been placed at the front of the line. That would include healthcare workers, dentists, emergency (police, fire), and workers at assisted living/elderly group homes, teachers, and of course, grocery store workers, etc.
The rest of us, including older individuals, can attenuate our risks by limiting the number of daily contacts (and by wearing a mask when we have contact with others), right? But these folks we interact with are likely people who have to interact with hundreds of people a week or even a day.
By targeting the elderly due to their higher risk of death, we're not protecting the *most* people.
By targeting those with the most number of daily contacts, we would make a huge and immediate dent in the infection rate, and therefore, the number of deaths.
Completely off topic:
A suggestion for the registration instruction: Add a mention that it takes unusually long for the confirmation email to arrive. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking something wasn’t working, then doing unnecessary things resulting in several emails in the end.
Agreed!! 🙂
Kevin,
You're the best! Keep going strong. THANKS for your insights and clear thinking. Good luck with the new site!
Here in NW Washington State they are trying To use clinics and pharmacies to distribute. There's no organization and no order of priority lists. Patients are instructed to not call their docs and the practices are not indicating whether they are rank ordering recipients. So people are reacting to rumors and insider info to rush around the state for vaccination. It's very Trumpian so far.
I'll be 80 in May have heart disease and have heard nothing from anybody. Very disconcerting. We are however quite comfortable in our cocoon.
WV are working with local pharmacies (of which there are unusually many) and not with CVS (although they are with Walgreens) to get vaccine to managed-care patients, contra the Trump plan. They're also partnering actively with county-level public health agencies to get it to the (prioritized) general public, and they've been willing and able to adapt plans as circumstances indicate. Both approaches have been unusually successful, both in distributing vaccine they've received and in getting it into patients' arms.
For a Republican, the gov (Justice) has been amazingly level-headed and sensible.
I think our big problem is not prioritizing cat owners.
Well I for one think that it is clearly in the national interest to prioritize categories of (privileged) individuals that just happen to include me, and I am OUTRAGED that more isn't being done to make this happen more quickly! We're nearly TWO WEEKS into the Biden administration and he STILL hasn't solved all the problems! What is he waiting for?!?!
The focus should be on reducing mortality and serious morbidity from SARS-CoV2. Therefore, stick with 1) those most at risk of death or serious illness, which generally means 65+, and those with underlying medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, obesity, pulmonary/cardiovascular diseases) AND 2) health care providers, first responders, and EVERYONE who works at hospitals, clinics, medical centers. Then, 3) school and college/university workers (teachers, staff, everybody), by age, working backwards from 65. In the US, 65+ are 50M. HCP employees and 1st responders are maybe 25M. All employees of schools and colleges/universities are 10M at most. That's 85M. Thereafter, first-come-first serve (FCFS). For the vast majority of the FCFS, they might get something between a mild cold and the flu before they are fully vaccinated.
Some time ago, if memory serves, Kevin put-out a post on whether grocery workers had a higher incidence of COVID-19 than other groups. Might be worth a refresh.
Is this working here?
And,
this?
It's not
So,
The needs of the 45 year-old work-at-home, live-alone professional demographic are being entirely ignored! What about us? So far our only option has been to fly to remote Alaskan locales and try to cheat!
...More seriously, I take whining as a good sign. I'm glad people want it. Now we just need to get it to them.
Because dogs are objectively better.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/dogs-have-been-our-best-friends-for-at-least-23000-years/