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I would like to understand why, as states blunder by opening vaccine access to half or more of their population despite scarcity (ensuring that many older and vulnerable populations will be vaccinated much later), there is not more pushback from the public health community.
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Is it because people think it is not a big problem?
Does anyone in public health harbor significant uncertainty about whether it is sensible to prioritize anyone over the age of 15 with BMI=30 for vaccination with the same urgency as 70 year olds, 60 year olds, etc?
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Does anyone in public health harbor significant uncertainty about whether it is sensible to prioritize anyone over the age of 15 with BMI=30 for vaccination with the same urgency as 70 year olds, 60 year olds, etc?
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Is it because there is a desire to show deference to the public health officials that created the basis for this priority scheme, even if it was a grave error?
It is out of a sense of politeness?
3/ https://twitter.com/WesPegden/status/1340839653620985859
It is out of a sense of politeness?
3/ https://twitter.com/WesPegden/status/1340839653620985859
Is it because people are distracted by more intriguing but practically much less important questions, like whether B.1.1.7 is +30%, +10%, 0%, or -10% more deadly than other variants?
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Is it because people are distracted by comparatively pointless policy debates, like whether two vaccinated people should wear masks when they talk to each other, rather than whether we are actually vaccinating the right people?
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Is it because there's no fight to be had? Indeed, because what we're doing is just indefensible, and thus few enemies can be made by pointing out that it is completely wrong?
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Is it because Nate got a little too raw and made everybody mad and so now we're going to vaccinate the wrong people?
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I honestly expected at the outset that we would get a lot of things wrong with COVID. I expected us to fail children and the elderly. I expected us to overestimate the durability of the effectiveness of mitigations. And I expected a dearth of scientific thinking.
But...
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But...
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... But I did not anticipate that we would fail to employ basic sense when designing priority schemes for a highly effective vaccine delivered in record time.
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This will not be an error that will be able to laid at the feet of "deniers" by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
This will be an error entirely owned by the public health community. And it is still in motion; there is still time to do something about it.
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This will be an error entirely owned by the public health community. And it is still in motion; there is still time to do something about it.
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