ACIP has taken another crack at recommending vaccine priority after healthcare workers. Instead of essential workers before seniors, it’s 75+ together with the most exposed workers, followed by 65+ with other essential workers & people with co-morbidities. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-20/02-COVID-Dooling.pdf

I don’t know if this is exactly right (and it’s just a recommendation) but it clearly makes more sense than the last version.

Here’s how they define the approximately 1/3 of essential workers who are “frontline.”

I do think there’s something to @mattyglesias’s point that there’s a lot of room for lobbying and creative designation with who’s “frontline” and even who has co-morbidities as you try to manage a priority system like this, while a purely age-based rule cannot be gamed.

I also don’t get some of these industry distinctions. The post office is frontline but food service is not? And then why do essential functions that can go near-pure WFH (like legal) go ahead of disrupted non-essential industries like live entertainment?

Incidentally, Nate Silver is not the one who has embarrassed himself in the public conversation over this. What’s embarrassing is treating public health experts as high priests whose ethical analysis may not be questioned by laypersons.