This entire article misses the elephant in the room:
The decision to open up vaccinations to all ages requires careful balance, experts say. Removing eligibility requirements could get shots in arms faster, which is especially important during a period in which the United States is in a tight race between virus variants and vaccinations.
Source: What experts think about opening vaccinations to all
As of yesterday morning, my County still had 3,000+ vaccination appointments available through the end of this week.
First, even those who are eligible might not be able to get vaccinated right away. Due to receiving a different vaccine in early March, I am prohibited from getting another vaccination until about 4 weeks later.
Second, people may have other time conflicts that preclude getting vaccinated right away.
Third, when supply starts to exceed demand, they need to open this up to a wider audience.
Fourth, the first 3+ months overwhelmingly favored giving doses to white women. At 3 months, 63% of those vaccinated in my state were women, and 37% were men, even though in my state, men were more likely to die from Covid-19 than women.
This occurred because of the defined priority groupings:
- Health care workers, where nurses and nurses aides are the largest cohorts are about 90% women and predominately white
- K-12 teachers, which are 90% women for K-6 and 75% women for K-12, and also predominately white.
- The elderly, which are 56% women (but more diverse population).
The only way to achieve equity is to open up vaccinations to more people.
The “experts” appear oblivious to this. Of course, they are primarily in health care or education, and vaccinated months ago, they no longer have “skin in the game’.
