Vermont prioritises BIPOC over white people for COVID-19 vaccine

[laughing dog]

Yet you are certain that you have the relevant data that justifies your
It is unknown WHY black Vermonters are at a risk 21 times greater than the risk of white people of contracting COVID19 and at a significantly greater risk of becoming seriously ill from it.

Greater rates of known risk factors: diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, type of work, do not account for so high a disparity.

I do not know where you have conjured the '21 times greater risk'. This fact sheet from Vermont shows white people have a rate of 332.3 per 10,000 while black people have a rate of 855.9 per 10,000. So let's say black people are three times more likely to be infected.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/18/covid-infection-fatality-rates-sex-and-age-15163
The COVID infection-fatality rate for 45-59 year olds is 0.121 - for every 100,000 infections, 121 people will die.
For 20-24 year olds, it is 0.006. For every 100,000 people in this age group, 6 people will die.

Now, I said earlier that black people are three times more likely to be infected. Let's triple the 20-24 year old rate death rate to account for this triple infection rate. It would be 18 people dying per 100,000. But let's triple it again to say once infected, black people are far more likely to die, to make it 54 per 100,000. Probably an overcorrection but let's go with it.

Yet the 45-49 year old death rate is 121 per 100,000. I make that out to be more than double the 20-24 year old rate.

Yet Vermont prioritised healthy 18 year old BIPOC over healthy 48 year old white people.

It will always be the case that someone in the in-group gets priority over someone in the out group - that is the nature of using priority groups for policy. The reason groupings are used is that the state either does not have adequate information or time to finely parse who should get priority.

You defend prioritising the elderly even though that means there will be some healthy older person who has less risk than some young person with health issues who has more risk. Yet you castigate the BIPOC prioritization even though the principle is still the same - it is possible a person with less risk will get ahead of someone with more risk.

 

[Metaphor]

Oh, and the same fact sheet I linked earlier shows that there is no statistical difference by race in COVID-19 death rates in Vermont:
https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites...pdf/COVID19-Weekly-Data-Summary-5-21-2021.pdf

View attachment 34084

Vermont is 93% white. That 96% of the deaths are white is not exactly earth shattering. And there is an unasterisked asterisk, "Death rates by race are not statistically different".

I'm well aware the point of this thread has become to contradict every single utterance I make, but in the post you quote, I write:

no statistical difference by race in COVID-19 death rates in Vermont:

To which you respond by helpfully pointing out "Death rates by race are not statistically different".

 

[Metaphor]

Yet you are certain that you have the relevant data that justifies your
It is unknown WHY black Vermonters are at a risk 21 times greater than the risk of white people of contracting COVID19 and at a significantly greater risk of becoming seriously ill from it.

Greater rates of known risk factors: diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, type of work, do not account for so high a disparity.

I do not know where you have conjured the '21 times greater risk'. This fact sheet from Vermont shows white people have a rate of 332.3 per 10,000 while black people have a rate of 855.9 per 10,000. So let's say black people are three times more likely to be infected.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/18/covid-infection-fatality-rates-sex-and-age-15163
The COVID infection-fatality rate for 45-59 year olds is 0.121 - for every 100,000 infections, 121 people will die.
For 20-24 year olds, it is 0.006. For every 100,000 people in this age group, 6 people will die.

Now, I said earlier that black people are three times more likely to be infected. Let's triple the 20-24 year old rate death rate to account for this triple infection rate. It would be 18 people dying per 100,000. But let's triple it again to say once infected, black people are far more likely to die, to make it 54 per 100,000. Probably an overcorrection but let's go with it.

Yet the 45-49 year old death rate is 121 per 100,000. I make that out to be more than double the 20-24 year old rate.

Yet Vermont prioritised healthy 18 year old BIPOC over healthy 48 year old white people.

It will always be the case that someone in the in-group gets priority over someone in the out group - that is the nature of using priority groups for policy. The reason groupings are used is that the state either does not have adequate information or time to finely parse who should get priority.

You defend prioritising the elderly even though that means there will be some healthy older person who has less risk than some young person with health issues who has more risk. Yet you castigate the BIPOC prioritization even though the principle is still the same - it is possible a person with less risk will get ahead of someone with more risk.

Actually, up until Vermont decided to discriminate by race, its prioritisation groupings made sense and were what the vast majority of jurisdictions were doing already - starting with the highest age band as representing the highest risk. I do not have a record of Vermont's timeline any longer, but this was followed by frontline workers and people with known comorbid conditions. I accept that the nature of priority groups based on some characteristic is not a perfect triage system nor could it be, and that there will be some people excluded who, if your system could perfectly assess individual risk, should instead have been prioritised.

But the BIPOC prioritisation was not the same as the others. No other group was prioritised because they were vaccine-hesitant. No other group's household members were prioritised just because someone in their household qualified. And, with the information available at the time, I do not believe that BIPOC 18+ were overall more at risk than other groupings (like the next age band, 40-49).

I've heard silly defences of this policy, including 'there's not many of them' (BIPOC in Vermont). A defence that would immediately be revealed for its utter idiocy, if instead Vermont had decided to give preference to the top 2% of households by income.

I don't expect priority groupings to be perfect, nor have I said that everyone in a priority grouping is at more risk than everyone not in a priority grouping. It is my opinion that if the State is going to discriminate by race, the justification hurdle is higher than the other categories of discrimination. But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data.

 

[laughing dog]

I don't expect priority groupings to be perfect, nor have I said that everyone in a priority grouping is at more risk than everyone not in a priority grouping. It is my opinion that if the State is going to discriminate by race, the justification hurdle is higher than the other categories of discrimination.

Why? In the past in the US, race discrimination in the US was to deny people of color something. This was not the case in this situation.

But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data.

That is your biased opinion, not a fact.

 

[Metaphor]

Why? In the past in the US, race discrimination in the US was to deny people of color something. This was not the case in this situation.

Because the State discriminating by race is almost always unfair.

That is your biased opinion, not a fact.

No, I presented data and arguments to back it up.

And in fact, if data were shown to me showing that the risk to 16+ BIPOC (minus all BIPOC in priority groups already eligible) was in fact higher than the risk to 40-49 year old white people (minus all white people in priority groups already eligible), I'd say the priority grouping had a justification. Note that I'd still have a preference--can the same ends be achieved without discrimination by race?--but I would admit the priority grouping is mostly consistent with the overall priority grouping justifications and evidence.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In Vermont, Blacks (234.8/10.000)-much, much, much more likely to be infected with COVID19 compared with whites (35.9/10,000).
https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/...11-13-2020.pdf

Black people in Vermont were infected at a rate of 234.8/10,000
White people in Vermont were infected at a rate of 35.9/10,000.

That's an enormous difference in risk. Further, Black people were much more likely to be hospitalized with COVID19 than white people.

You cut and pasted that from somewhere and the link got eaten.

And that's very different than the data we had before.

 

[laughing dog]

Why? In the past in the US, race discrimination in the US was to deny people of color something. This was not the case in this situation.

Because the State discriminating by race is almost always unfair.

Assuming that ambiguous claim is true, how is relevant in this case.

No, I presented data and arguments to back it up.....

Whether or not a policy is justified is a value judgment (i.e. an opinion).

 

[Metaphor]

Assuming that ambiguous claim is true, how is relevant in this case.

Because Vermont discriminated by race.

Whether or not a policy is justified is a value judgment (i.e. an opinion).

Yes it is - which is why the accusations against me that I'm "ignoring data" are both wrong and wrong-headed.

 

[laughing dog]

Assuming that ambiguous claim is true, how is relevant in this case.

Because Vermont discriminated by race.

Assuming your ambiguous claim that State discrimination is almost always unfair is true, you need to explain how Vermont's policy in this case is unfair, because almost always does not mean always.

[
Yes it is - which is why the accusations against me that I'm "ignoring data" are both wrong and wrong-headed.

So? I didn't mention anything about your ignoring data. I said your "But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data." was a biased opinion not a fact.

 

[Metaphor]

Assuming your ambiguous claim that State discrimination is almost always unfair is true, you need to explain how Vermont's policy in this case is unfair, because almost always does not mean always.

I'll contrast it with a scenario where it would not be unfair. If there was
* a link between genetic predisposition and COVID sickness and death, and
* the specific genetic markers are known, but
* the specific genetic markers are not readily measurable individual by individual in the population
* a pre-existing association is known between race and the marker

Then it would be justifiable to discriminate by race. Something like: 2% of white people, and 60% of black people, have the genetic predisposition to COVID sickness and death, then, even though if we knew the individuals who had the genetic predisposition we would use that measure, since we can't do that perhaps because of privacy or time or cost or any combination, we instead take the proxy of race.

Vermont's discrimination by race is significantly worse than other kinds of discrimination by race. It is worse for the State to discriminate on race than for individuals to discriminate, and it is worse for the State to discriminate because it has exclusive control over the product, and it is worse because the exclusive control is for a product that has life-saving benefits.

So? I didn't mention anything about your ignoring data. I said your "But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data." was a biased opinion not a fact.

It was not justified given the precedent Vermont had established for herself earlier. Vermont had not prioritised groups based on differential vaccine uptake; Vermont had not prioritised otherwise non-eligible household members of eligible people. If Vermont had crunched the available numbers at the time and established that the remaining 16+ non-eligible BIPOC had a higher overall risk of sickness and death than the remaining non-eligible white population, then it ought release the results of this calculation, because I'm not convinced that it was actually the case.

And well may you now call my opinion biased, as if the values Vermont was deciding its decisions on were also somehow not biased.

 

[Elixir]

I said your "But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data." was a biased opinion not a fact.

This assuming that your own opinions and subjective judgments are foundational facts upon which societal decisions should rest, is a very consistent and persistent thing on the extreme right. Wanting to be the arbiter of what is "justified" and "un-justified" vaccine-use discrimination and deciding whether the 1/6 rioters were tourists behaving properly... all things that can only be correctly determined by right wing nutbars.

 

[Metaphor]

I said your "But even if you thought the hurdle should be the same, the BIPOC discirimination wasn't justified by the data." was a biased opinion not a fact.

This assuming that your own opinions and subjective judgments are foundational facts upon which societal decisions should rest, is a very consistent and persistent thing on the extreme right. Wanting to be the arbiter of what is "justified" and "un-justified" vaccine-use discrimination and deciding whether the 1/6 rioters were tourists behaving properly... all things that can only be correctly determined by right wing nutbars.

The extreme right. Gospa moja.

The thread is full of people deciding it was exactly correct and justified for Vermont to discriminate by race, because Vermont's decision accords with their own values and judgment, yet it's only the dissenters who are full of 'opinions' and 'subjective judgments'.

 

[laughing dog]

Assuming your ambiguous claim that State discrimination is almost always unfair is true, you need to explain how Vermont's policy in this case is unfair, because almost always does not mean always.

I'll contrast it with a scenario where it would not be unfair. If there was
* a link between genetic predisposition and COVID sickness and death, and
* the specific genetic markers are known, but
* the specific genetic markers are not readily measurable individual by individual in the population
* a pre-existing association is known between race and the marker

Then it would be justifiable to discriminate by race. Something like: 2% of white people, and 60% of black people, have the genetic predisposition to COVID sickness and death, then, even though if we knew the individuals who had the genetic predisposition we would use that measure, since we can't do that perhaps because of privacy or time or cost or any combination, we instead take the proxy of race.

Vermont's discrimination by race is significantly worse than other kinds of discrimination by race. It is worse for the State to discriminate on race than for individuals to discriminate, and it is worse for the State to discriminate because it has exclusive control over the product, and it is worse because the exclusive control is for a product that has life-saving benefits.

So, Vermont's policy was unfair because it does not meet your arbitrary and hypothetical standard for "fairness" in this case.

It was not justified given the precedent Vermont had established for herself earlier. Vermont had not prioritised groups based on differential vaccine uptake; Vermont had not prioritised otherwise non-eligible household members of eligible people. If Vermont had crunched the available numbers at the time and established that the remaining 16+ non-eligible BIPOC had a higher overall risk of sickness and death than the remaining non-eligible white population, then it ought release the results of this calculation, because I'm not convinced that it was actually the case.

More opinion.

And well may you now call my opinion biased, as if the values Vermont was deciding its decisions on were also somehow not biased.

Irrelevant to the issue that you conflate your opinion with fact.

 

[Metaphor]

So, Vermont's policy was unfair because it does not meet your arbitrary and hypothetical standard for "fairness" in this case.

There's nothing arbitrary about it. Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". I told you my principles and my reasoning. You asked me why I found Vermont's discrimination unacceptable and I gave you my reasons. I illustrated what could be a fair use of race.

If you did not care what my answer was you should not have asked.

Irrelevant to the issue that you conflate your opinion with fact.

My values are my own, but the facts (about the sickness and death risk to the remaining unprioritised populations) are not opinion. Again, incredible that you ask my reasoning and then, instead of saying 'here is why I disagree', you instead say 'you confuse opinion with fact', as if the opinion of everyone supporting Vermont's decision were also not opinions.

It's one thing to say "I don't share your values and I disagree with your understanding of the facts". It is quite another to ask me for my reasoning and then dismiss it as "opinion". If you were going to simply dismiss it then you oughtn't have asked me. It's a rude waste of my time.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It's a rude waste of my time.

This thread is a rude waste of everyone's time. Vermont has succeeded. It's time to stop bitching about it.

 

[laughing dog]

So, Vermont's policy was unfair because it does not meet your arbitrary and hypothetical standard for "fairness" in this case.

There's nothing arbitrary about it. Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". I told you my principles and my reasoning. You asked me why I found Vermont's discrimination unacceptable and I gave you my reasons. I illustrated what could be a fair use of race.

There are numerous shades of meaning for arbitrary. Expand your vocabulary. Your principles are not universally held and they may be not be driven by reason.

If you did not care what my answer was you should not have asked.

Now how would anyone know what your answer to a question will be unless they ask the question? Really, your response is ridiculous on its face.

My values are my own, but the facts (about the sickness and death risk to the remaining unprioritised populations) are not opinion. Again, incredible that you ask my reasoning and then, instead of saying 'here is why I disagree', you instead say 'you confuse opinion with fact', as if the opinion of everyone supporting Vermont's decision were also not opinions.

Reasoning does not necessarily involve opinions. In my view, others have been quite clear in distinguishing their opinions with the fact - I hope that deals with your immature"whaboutism".

It's one thing to say "I don't share your values and I disagree with your understanding of the facts". It is quite another to ask me for my reasoning and then dismiss it as "opinion".

Here you go with your straw men and illogical reasoning. Reasoning does not mean an opinion. One can take facts and come to a logical conclusion. But when you inject terms like "unfair" and "justified", you are using value judgments and promoting an opinion. An opinion is not a fact, no matter how much you wish it were. It is not a dismissal to distinguish between fact and opinion. Your accusation is ridiculous.

If you were going to simply dismiss it then you oughtn't have asked me. It's a rude waste of my time.

I am not responsible for your immature hypersensitivity. If you cannot abide people trying to wade through your rhetoric and poorly presented arguments, then either do a better job in presentation or don't read their responses. Making ridiculous comments and whining does not help your case.

 

[TomC]

You asked me why I found Vermont's discrimination unacceptable and I gave you my reasons.

No, really you didn't. You gave us your ideological problems with the Vermont authority's policies. But you never gave anybody concrete data supporting your assertion that those policies resulted in more C19 damage.

Wyoming is very similar, demographically, to Vermont. Tiny population. Very ethnically homogeneous(white). Relatively affluent.
Wyoming has a vaccination rate less than half that of Vermont. For whatever reason, Vermont is kicking Wyoming ass protecting residents from the virus.

How about, instead of criticizing Vermont policymakers, over ideological beliefs you have, you criticize Wyoming policymakers for their miserable results? And all the resulting deaths?

Return to the complex reality of voluntary protection from a global pandemic? Recognize the messy psychological of a treatment the President says is unnecessary and the media describes as a dangerous plot?

How about a return to reality and quantifiable results?

Tom

 

[Elixir]

You asked me why I found Vermont's discrimination unacceptable and I gave you my reasons.

No, really you didn't. You gave us your ideological problems with the Vermont authority's policies. But you never gave anybody concrete data supporting your assertion that those policies resulted in more C19 damage.

Wyoming is very similar, demographically, to Vermont. Tiny population. Very ethnically homogeneous(white). Relatively affluent.
Wyoming has a vaccination rate less than half that of Vermont. For whatever reason, Vermont is kicking Wyoming ass protecting residents from the virus.

How about, instead of criticizing Vermont policymakers, over ideological beliefs you have, you criticize Wyoming policymakers for their miserable results? And all the resulting deaths?

Return to the complex reality of voluntary protection from a global pandemic? Recognize the messy psychological of a treatment the President says is unnecessary and the media describes as a dangerous plot?

How about a return to reality and quantifiable results?

Tom

The geography and per-mile pop density are quite different ... not that it provides a real reason, but you should expect it to be offered as an excuse for the predictably abysmal performance of a right wing extremist State Government.

 

[Metaphor]

There are numerous shades of meaning for arbitrary. Expand your vocabulary. Your principles are not universally held and they may be not be driven by reason.

Of course my principles are not universally held. Neither are yours, neither are the principles of the government of Vermont. That doesn't make them arbitrary.

Now how would anyone know what your answer to a question will be unless they ask the question? Really, your response is ridiculous on its face.

I didn't suggest you knew the answer to your question, I suggested you did not care what the answer was.

But when you inject terms like "unfair" and "justified", you are using value judgments and promoting an opinion. An opinion is not a fact, no matter how much you wish it were. It is not a dismissal to distinguish between fact and opinion. Your accusation is ridiculous.

If I'm promoting an opinion, then so is everyone on this thread who supports Vermont's decision, and so is Vermont itself.

I am not responsible for your immature hypersensitivity. If you cannot abide people trying to wade through your rhetoric and poorly presented arguments, then either do a better job in presentation or don't read their responses. Making ridiculous comments and whining does not help your case.

I answered your questions about my reasoning, and then because you evidently did not find enough purchase on that reasoning to explain what was wrong with it, you dismissed my arguments as 'opinion'.

 

[Metaphor]

No, really you didn't. You gave us your ideological problems with the Vermont authority's policies. But you never gave anybody concrete data supporting your assertion that those policies resulted in more C19 damage.

I did not suggest Vermont's policies "resulted in more C19 damage", so I don't know why I would have to defend such an assertion.

Wyoming is very similar, demographically, to Vermont. Tiny population. Very ethnically homogeneous(white). Relatively affluent.

Wyoming has a vaccination rate less than half that of Vermont. For whatever reason, Vermont is kicking Wyoming ass protecting residents from the virus.

So, you don't feel like listing any of the myriad ways that Wyoming is different to Vermont? Like, having a population density one tenth of Vermont's?

How about, instead of criticizing Vermont policymakers, over ideological beliefs you have, you criticize Wyoming policymakers for their miserable results? And all the resulting deaths?

How about I don't tell you what to feel and post about, and you don't tell me? Did Wyoming discriminate by race in its vaccine distribution? Did it prioritise lower risk groups over higher risk groups?

Return to the complex reality of voluntary protection from a global pandemic? Recognize the messy psychological of a treatment the President says is unnecessary and the media describes as a dangerous plot?

What?