There is an argument that the rationing/prioritization scheme that is currently in use is inherently unjust, and that no one is entitled to faster vaccination than anyone else.
1. Vaccinating people who are the most likely to get sick
2. Vaccinating people who are the most likely to spread the virus
Option 1 makes the death and hospitalization rates fall quicker, so that anyone we miss is more likely to still have a hospital bed to get treated in. Option 2 reduces the total number of people exposed to the virus.
The whole point of vaccination is to keep people from having to go to the hospital or dying - protecting the weakest first achieves that better than random vaccinations. Someone like me who basically lives in his room and works remotely can afford to wait for shots - someone who works in retail and has 1000s of exposures per day needs their shots yesterday.
I think this is an oversimplification. We are living in our rooms because we choose to; many who don't work in retail that could be living in their rooms are not, and are voluntarily engaging in 1000s of exposures per day. If those people are young and not in healthcare (mostly true), such potential superspreaders are not priorities for vaccination due to this convoluted priority system.
So "vaccinating people who are the most likely to get sick" is the only option supported by the evidence. Or preferably vaccinate people most likely to become moderately to severey ill, or die.
At this time we should not be "vaccinating people who are the most likely to spread the virus". We don't know if approved vaccines will help with this.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210203-why-vaccinated-p...
You can prioritize for the sickest while simultaneously optimizing for all doses being used.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/533364-fda-chief-urges... ("FDA chief urges states to allow COVID-19 vaccinations of lower-priority groups")
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/thousands-covid-19-vacc... ("Thousands of Covid-19 vaccines wind up in the garbage because of fed, state guidelines")
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/28/961722489/why-are-health-care... ("They're A Precious Commodity, So Why Are Some COVID-19 Vaccines Going To Waste?")
https://www.propublica.org/article/covid-vaccine-wastage ("How Many Vaccine Shots Go to Waste? Several States Aren’t Counting.")
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9093... ("There are vaccines that are being wasted and that is a travesty," Terry Fulmer, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation, told ABC News. "Even one dose wasted is too many.")
You're agreeing with me.
A successful vaccination program, then, would aggressively work through the most vulnerable populations first.
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...
I was answering the question posed by someone asking why someone felt entitled to faster vaccination.
I know, you said:
>> There is an argument that the rationing/prioritization scheme that is currently in use is inherently unjust, and that no one is entitled to faster vaccination than anyone else.
I'm curious what that argument is.
Those at highest risk of death are the 70+. Coincidentally, people 70+ also have already led long lives / have the least utility left to give back to the society that is doing the prioritization. It is therefore more important to give doses to young people first, as someone needlessly dying with 60 years left on their clock is significantly worse than someone who has already had the opportunity to live a full life and statistically would've died within the next 10 years anyway.
I find it unethical to take away all quality of life for hundreds of millions of young people in the prime of their lives, as well as destroying thousands of small businesses, so that bed ridden 90 year olds can be bed ridden for a couple more years, at best. Yet this is exactly what is happening, at least in Europe, with draconian lockdowns and curfews in place while vaccinating groups that didn’t leave their houses pre-COVID either.
With how things are going currently in my country my peers and I will be lucky if we can be vaccinated in 2021.
One that jumps out is a blanket, age-based DNR. A 70 year old who has been refused the shot but subsequently develops Covid is significantly more likely to be hospitalized than your “prime of their life young person”, for whom Covid isn’t nearly as likely to be severe.
This means they’re going to be an overall resource strain on the system. It wouldn’t be logical to refuse vaccinations for those most likely to be seriously sickened by the disease but then to try to provide advanced life support when they need it.
We will need to convert some percentage of hospital staff into “Covid hospice workers” to allow those who are sick to die as peacefully as one can when their lungs are shutting down.
The reason I’d like them to be vaccinated is so that normal life can resume to some degree. All public places save for grocery stores and pharmacies have been closed here since early December. There’s been a 9PM curfew in place for a month with no end in sight. People’s mental health is rapidly deteriorating. I would not be making this argument if we were simply required to wear masks and could go about our business as is the situation in many places around the world. But that is not the case at all here.
I don't think just swapping priority from elderly to prime age is a solution. As elderly will still be the ones bogging down emergency services, making relatively benign injuries a huge massive problem for everyone else. When returning to the normal distribution of emergencies after opening everything up, this is still a disaster for the hospitals.
What we’ve seen is that if hospitals aren’t overloaded, they are effectively able to treat people.
In a few weeks, as production ramps, the priority will shift to mass vaccination to everyone. You’ll literally have vans driving around setting up pop up events.