Whiteness of groups should deprioritise them for COVID vaccine

[lpetrich]

I find this sort of proposal troubling. That's because the real problem is not race, it's social class. Certainly some racial and ethnic groups tend to be better off than others, but that's a tendency, not a rigid feature. It seems to me that many Americans are reluctant to confront the issue of social class -- they have this pretension of the US as a totally classless society.

Yes I'd prioritize essential workers, no matter who they are, even if they are honkies with mostly British ancestry.

 

[Metaphor]

FFS, It's practically the title of YOUR THREAD.

No, it's not. Did you read my OP? It was very minimal. The "whiteness of groups" is not a claim that a group is or is not majority white. It was a description about relative whiteness, as indicated in the quotes I extracted. Teachers are "more white" than the general population. Essential workers may be "less white" than the general population, but that does not mean "majority white". The actual percentage whiteness of these groups was not discussed.

It is not my fault that you are unaware that in the US, most nursing home staff, most food service workers, most workers in the food supply chain are not white. That does not make it any less true. Please do not tell me that you think we have more doctors and nurses than we have nursing assistants, busboys, waitstaff, food prep, meat processing plant workers, etc? You're not that naive. It's just that like most people, you probably don't think much about how many people are involved in getting whatever it is you ate for dinner to your plate. Or who takes care of the elderly who are too frail to live in their own homes.

Oy gevalt.

The article in the OP has a chart of 'share of essential workers in each state', showing (leaving out DC), between two thirds and three quarters of the workforce in each state could be classified as 'essential'.

This link shows that 77.7% of employed persons in 2019 in America where white. That link is built for a different purpose than classifying essential or non-essential workers, but let's roughly eliminate all 'management, professional, and related' occupations (40.8% of the work force), and classify all the rest as essential. (Remember, at least two thirds of workers are classified so).

This leaves 157,538,000 x (1-.408) = 93,262,496 workers in service, sales, natural resources, production.

41.4% of employed white people are in 'management, professional etc' so that leaves 122,441,000 x (1-.414), leaving 71,750,426 in the other occupation types.

In the 'essential' occupations, whites make up 71,750,426 out of 93,262,496 workers, or 76.9 %

I call that majority white.

Now, you may disagree with one or all of the steps I've made here. But I haven't made a wild claim about the majority of essential workers in the US being nonwhite. You made that claim. Show your work.

The reason is NOT that they are less white. The reason is that they are, in fact, more essential--AND also have greater capacity to not only contract COVID19 but to unwittingly spread it and so to collapse the supply chain that the rest of society (especially white people who are less likely to do this type of work).

Did you not read my OP? It was quite explicit that whiteness of groups should be a factor in the priority of that group

The color of teachers is definitely not a determining factor of whether or not they are essential. That's simply another figment of your inflamed imagination.

You evidently did not read the OP.

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities. Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

 

[Toni]

No, it's not. Did you read my OP? It was very minimal. The "whiteness of groups" is not a claim that a group is or is not majority white. It was a description about relative whiteness, as indicated in the quotes I extracted. Teachers are "more white" than the general population. Essential workers may be "less white" than the general population, but that does not mean "majority white". The actual percentage whiteness of these groups was not discussed.



Oy gevalt.

The article in the OP has a chart of 'share of essential workers in each state', showing (leaving out DC), between two thirds and three quarters of the workforce in each state could be classified as 'essential'.

This link shows that 77.7% of employed persons in 2019 in America where white. That link is built for a different purpose than classifying essential or non-essential workers, but let's roughly eliminate all 'management, professional, and related' occupations (40.8% of the work force), and classify all the rest as essential. (Remember, at least two thirds of workers are classified so).

This leaves 157,538,000 x (1-.408) = 93,262,496 workers in service, sales, natural resources, production.

41.4% of employed white people are in 'management, professional etc' so that leaves 122,441,000 x (1-.414), leaving 71,750,426 in the other occupation types.

In the 'essential' occupations, whites make up 71,750,426 out of 93,262,496 workers, or 76.9 %

I call that majority white.

Now, you may disagree with one or all of the steps I've made here. But I haven't made a wild claim about the majority of essential workers in the US being nonwhite. You made that claim. Show your work.

The reason is NOT that they are less white. The reason is that they are, in fact, more essential--AND also have greater capacity to not only contract COVID19 but to unwittingly spread it and so to collapse the supply chain that the rest of society (especially white people who are less likely to do this type of work).

Did you not read my OP? It was quite explicit that whiteness of groups should be a factor in the priority of that group

The color of teachers is definitely not a determining factor of whether or not they are essential. That's simply another figment of your inflamed imagination.

You evidently did not read the OP.

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities. Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

I read the OP and the quotes you included. Apparently you did not. The first quote points out that most essential workers are not white.

I realize that you think you are being provocative rather than asinine.

 

[TSwizzle]

I think the end game is that white people are denied any healthcare at all. Seems fair enough if you look back at how mean whitey has been.

 

[TomC]

Missed in the debate is "what happens if something goes wrong with the vaccine?"

This is why I'm in no hurry to get a C19 vaccination.

My personal situation doesn't make it important. It's not been remotely as well tested in real life situations as most such medicine is. I'd rather wait.

But, desperate times require desperate measures. We need something, and a poorly tested and researched vaccine is better than nothing.

Amongst people who want a vaccine, prioritize people who were responsible the rest of this year. My mother-in-law has been masking and distancing and hand sanitizer since February. Her church lady friend, Henrietta, has been ignoring and complaining and repeating Trump's bullshit the whole time. If m-i-l wants a vaccine, she should get one before Henrietta.
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

I read the OP and the quotes you included. Apparently you did not. The first quote points out that most essential workers are not white.

No, it doesn't. I don't know how you can think that. Or rather, I do know how: you want it to be true.

The first quote does not imply that the majority of essential workers are not white. It simply doesn't. I'm sorry.

I realize that you think you are being provocative rather than asinine.

I realise you simply cannot stop saying things you intend to be hurtful, for any reason or no reason at all.

 

[TSwizzle]

Unless of course it’s a cunning plan by whitey to test the vaccine on the darkies to see if it’s safe for us whites. In that case, carry on.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Missed in the debate is "what happens if something goes wrong with the vaccine?"

This is why I'm in no hurry to get a C19 vaccination.

My personal situation doesn't make it important. It's not been remotely as well tested in real life situations as most such medicine is. I'd rather wait.

But, desperate times require desperate measures. We need something, and a poorly tested and researched vaccine is better than nothing.

Amongst people who want a vaccine, prioritize people who were responsible the rest of this year. My mother-in-law has been masking and distancing and hand sanitizer since February. Her church lady friend, Henrietta, has been ignoring and complaining and repeating Trump's bullshit the whole time. If m-i-l wants a vaccine, she should get one before Henrietta.
Tom

According to Trump, Henrietta shouldn’t even need a vaccine.

 

[laughing dog]

Ah, now it's the tip of the tail you were talking about.
Well, I'm glad you went to a (post-hoc clarified) dog metaphor instead of saying "your OPs and focus bore me, but not enough to refrain from posting comments about how much they bore me"

Actually, the last sentence of my post (25) to which your responded was "It seems to me your OP focuses on the tip of the tail of that dog".

You are right. I apologise for misreading and acknowledge that you made it very clear from that post that my OPs and focus are what you regard as peripheral and unimportant.

No need to apologize. It is not your fault your demonstrated reading problems lead you to those types of blatant and avoidable mistakes and subsequent mischaracterizations.

 

[Toni]

I read the OP and the quotes you included. Apparently you did not. The first quote points out that most essential workers are not white.

No, it doesn't. I don't know how you can think that. Or rather, I do know how: you want it to be true.

Your OP:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-first.html

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

The whiteness of these groups is so vexing. But I don't think the BIPOC who happen to be among the elderly or teachers should suffer because they are even more a minority in these groups than they are in the general population. I think what America should do is simply exclude white people from COVID vaccination, until every BIPOC has been vaccinated.

The first quote does not imply that the majority of essential workers are not white. It simply doesn't. I'm sorry.

I stand corrected: It says that these workers are disproportionately minorities.

I realize that you think you are being provocative rather than asinine.

I realise you simply cannot stop saying things you intend to be hurtful, for any reason or no reason at all.

Actually, it did not occur to me that you would find what I wrote to be hurtful. I have purposely reworded posts and indeed, the infamous quote from my former boss, to avoid being insulting to you.

 

[Metaphor]

Your OP:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-first.html

Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities. “Older populations are whiter, ” Dr. Schmidt said. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

The whiteness of these groups is so vexing. But I don't think the BIPOC who happen to be among the elderly or teachers should suffer because they are even more a minority in these groups than they are in the general population. I think what America should do is simply exclude white people from COVID vaccination, until every BIPOC has been vaccinated.

The first quote does not imply that the majority of essential workers are not white. It simply doesn't. I'm sorry.

I stand corrected: It says that these workers are disproportionately minorities.

I realize that you think you are being provocative rather than asinine.

I realise you simply cannot stop saying things you intend to be hurtful, for any reason or no reason at all.

Actually, it did not occur to me that you would find what I wrote to be hurtful. I have purposely reworded posts and indeed, the infamous quote from my former boss, to avoid being insulting to you.

You think your condescending claim that

* You can mindread my real intention to post as 'provocation'; and
* I'm not competent enough to be provocative, so I end up sounding asinine

Isn't an attempt to be deliberately hurtful?

Thank you, at any rate, for admitting you misread the OP.

 

[Toni]

Missed in the debate is "what happens if something goes wrong with the vaccine?"

This is why I'm in no hurry to get a C19 vaccination.

My personal situation doesn't make it important. It's not been remotely as well tested in real life situations as most such medicine is. I'd rather wait.

But, desperate times require desperate measures. We need something, and a poorly tested and researched vaccine is better than nothing.

Amongst people who want a vaccine, prioritize people who were responsible the rest of this year. My mother-in-law has been masking and distancing and hand sanitizer since February. Her church lady friend, Henrietta, has been ignoring and complaining and repeating Trump's bullshit the whole time. If m-i-l wants a vaccine, she should get one before Henrietta.
Tom

I understand the sentiment. However, Henrietta, were she to become gravely ill from the virus, would likely be hospitalized and receive a lot of expensive care that would put health care workers caring for her (and their families) at greater risk than if she were vaccinated.

Vaccinations and health care policies are not designed or should not be designed to most benefit those who are 'deserving' but to protect the public health. This is why I wrote above that incarcerated persons should have a high priority of vaccination. They are helpless or nearly so to control their living environment and so avoid the virus by practicing social distancing, good hygiene, and good nutrition, exercise, etc. and being in such close quarters, the opportunities for spread to other inmates as well as jail/prison staff is quite significant. Also at risk are court workers, juries, judges, lawyers, anyone working in the judicial system--including any victims who might be called on to testify against them at trial. And their families and social and community contacts. If you think this is not an actual issue, I can assure you that I am told by some working in the judicial system that indeed, it is a significant and costly issue. I am purposely writing about incarcerated persons because those are people most tend to think of as less deserving. Yet, the potential for widespread disease amongst inmates and all those in contact with them is very high and can easily leap to the community at large.

ANYONE living in a communal type setting: nursing homes (which are not always for the elderly), rehab centers, dormitories, military, incarcerated individuals, etc. should be high on the list to receive vaccines because the chance of spread beyond just those small communities is enormous.

That community spread not only costs lives but continues to tax a health care system that has been working overtime for months now, while at the same time forcing patients with less serious needs who actually should perhaps receive hospital care to avoid that environment. I know of two different individuals (one in his 50's and the other in his early 60's) who have suffered a series of strokes---and were sent home very, very quickly to homes not equipped to deal with their ongoing needs. COVID is draining all resources away from other areas. They may well lose their lives needlessly because of COVID even if they never contract it. Can you imagine being pregnant and contemplating giving birth in a hospital? Can you imagine needing to postpone a hip replacement or cancer surgery or other non-emergency treatment due to COVID? Because that's what's happening now.

 

[Toni]

Your OP:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-first.html

Marc Lipsitch, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, argued that teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” he said. “Of course they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

The whiteness of these groups is so vexing. But I don't think the BIPOC who happen to be among the elderly or teachers should suffer because they are even more a minority in these groups than they are in the general population. I think what America should do is simply exclude white people from COVID vaccination, until every BIPOC has been vaccinated.

The first quote does not imply that the majority of essential workers are not white. It simply doesn't. I'm sorry.

I stand corrected: It says that these workers are disproportionately minorities.

I realize that you think you are being provocative rather than asinine.

I realise you simply cannot stop saying things you intend to be hurtful, for any reason or no reason at all.

Actually, it did not occur to me that you would find what I wrote to be hurtful. I have purposely reworded posts and indeed, the infamous quote from my former boss, to avoid being insulting to you.

You think your condescending claim that

* You can mindread my real intention to post as 'provocation'; and
* I'm not competent enough to be provocative, so I end up sounding asinine

Isn't an attempt to be deliberately hurtful?

Thank you, at any rate, for admitting you misread the OP.

Here's some information you might find useful:
http://phinational.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Its-Time-to-Care-2020-PHI.pdf

The majority of direct care workers
(59 percent) are people of color, including
30 percent who are Black/AfricanAmerican, 18 percent who are Hispanic/
Latino (of any race), 7 percent who are
Asian or Pacific-Islanders, and 4 percent
who identify as other races or ethnicities.
This diversity is reflected across all
segments of the workforce, with slight
variations: home care has the highest
proportion of workers of color overall
(62 percent) and Hispanic/Latino workers
(23 percent), for example, while a larger
share of the nursing assistant workforce is
Black/African-American (37 percent).
The direct care workforce also relies
heavily on immigrant workers.
Approximately one in four direct care
workers (26 percent) was born outside
the United States, with a range from
21 percent of nursing assistants and
residential care aides to 31 percent of
home care workers.

In other words, a majority of direct care workers are minorities.
That's only one segment of essential workers, of course.

In the food processing industry, 34% of the workers are white,non-hispanic, meaning that a majority of the workers are minority.

You are so free with your own insults and demeaning language direct at myself, Rhea (both of us nasty women), laughing dog, other posters, that I assumed that you had skin thick enough to handle what you are so free to dish out. My apologies for misjudging.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

People say stupid shit all the time. Now, if these views are seriously debated for policy, then I'd be worried. Since they are not, this is really another nothing burger.

In terms of policy you're right, there's no power, there's nothing.

However, it says a lot about the person making the statement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, prevent all white people from getting the vaccine until all people of color are vaccinated.

Why not? It's not like such policies and attitudes have never existed where white people's interests were prioritized, often to the point of genocide. That's pretty much the substrate of white people history for fuck's sake.

Even if such a policy were to be implemented (it won't be, snowflakes, calm your tits), it wouldn't be the end of the world. It wouldn't be good health policy, of course, but beyond that, the only harm would be to white people's delicate self esteem.

When you vaccinate without regard to risk factors you are killing people.

Thus you are saying that killing white people doesn't matter.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So, my first thought is that we should be vaccinating the communities in which the spread is happening fastest.

Maybe we should all take a page out of Loren's book: make it about socioeconomics.

Then, we can see Derec and all the rest flip out over it being "racially driven" and then we can use all those SoCiOEcOnOmiCs arguments and they can all hypocritically tear apart their own principles by pointing out that there is little functional difference in the US between being a monority in the US and being poor in the US.

The fact is, we should be vaccinating the poorest people in our country immediately after vaccinating the most vulnerable and the most systematically exposed (essential services).

Functionally, this will amount to minorities getting the vaccine earlier than everyone else. Rhetorically, it's just looking out for the poor.

Vaccination should go first to those on the front lines, then by risk (both a matter of how dangerous it would be for the person, and how exposed they are--those in essential jobs should be at a higher priority than those who are not, and the people who can work from home at a lower priority.) Ideally everyone would get a score but that's probably too complex and it should just go by categories.

Doing it any other way increases the death toll.

I'm not sure the community rate should matter because that's basically self-inflicted.

 

[Angry Floof]

Yes, prevent all white people from getting the vaccine until all people of color are vaccinated.

Why not? It's not like such policies and attitudes have never existed where white people's interests were prioritized, often to the point of genocide. That's pretty much the substrate of white people history for fuck's sake.

Even if such a policy were to be implemented (it won't be, snowflakes, calm your tits), it wouldn't be the end of the world. It wouldn't be good health policy, of course, but beyond that, the only harm would be to white people's delicate self esteem.

When you vaccinate without regard to risk factors you are killing people.

Thus you are saying that killing white people doesn't matter.

No, that wasn't what I was saying.

 

[Toni]

So, my first thought is that we should be vaccinating the communities in which the spread is happening fastest.

Maybe we should all take a page out of Loren's book: make it about socioeconomics.

Then, we can see Derec and all the rest flip out over it being "racially driven" and then we can use all those SoCiOEcOnOmiCs arguments and they can all hypocritically tear apart their own principles by pointing out that there is little functional difference in the US between being a monority in the US and being poor in the US.

The fact is, we should be vaccinating the poorest people in our country immediately after vaccinating the most vulnerable and the most systematically exposed (essential services).

Functionally, this will amount to minorities getting the vaccine earlier than everyone else. Rhetorically, it's just looking out for the poor.

Vaccination should go first to those on the front lines, then by risk (both a matter of how dangerous it would be for the person, and how exposed they are--those in essential jobs should be at a higher priority than those who are not, and the people who can work from home at a lower priority.) Ideally everyone would get a score but that's probably too complex and it should just go by categories.

Doing it any other way increases the death toll.

I'm not sure the community rate should matter because that's basically self-inflicted.

Community rate is not exactly self inflicted. Not everyone within a community chooses to behave like a selfish ass and go to bars and whatever, maskless. Moving is not feasible for a lot of people, especially in a pandemic.

The case against making the badly behaved people wait for a vaccine is twofold: 1. They are the ones spreading it, so, in an act of self-protection, as many of the Covidiots as possible should be vaccinated. It's not fair. It's self preservation. 2. A lot of these Covidiots will not easily or willingly embrace vaccination. They will take a lot of effort to convince. They are not simply going to die quietly in their homes, with the government confiscating their homes and bank accounts to offset the cost of the damage they've done. Nope. They're going to be out spreading Covid wherever they go and if they actually become ill or any of the people they spread it to become ill, we are once again expecting our health care workers to risk their lives and the lives of their families to take care of selfish idiots. Because when someone comes into the ER in respiratory distress, there is no political test they must pass first. And yes, we should vaccinate health care workers first and foremost but while that will protect them from COVID, it will not protect them from any of the other serious health harms they can, will and currently are experiencing due to overwork, stress, lack of sleep, etc.

In other words: we shouldn't just vaccinate the people we recognize as important (health care workers, police, fire department, etc.) but also people who are vulnerable because of their jobs when their jobs put them at risk not only of contracting but also spreading COVID or people we think deserve it like teachers and day careworkers and the nice clerk at the liquor store or grocery store workers. Or postal workers.

Nope: people who are irresponsible or unlucky or incarcerated need to be inoculated in order to protect society at large from their irresponsible behavior or because good people we like and approve of must come in contact with them and will then spread it to their families/contacts.

Basically, everyone needs to get vaccinated and if anyone has the chance to be vaccinated, they should take it, never mind if there is someone somewhere who 'deserves' it more. Exceptions of course for those medically unable to be safely vaccinated.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, prevent all white people from getting the vaccine until all people of color are vaccinated.

Why not? It's not like such policies and attitudes have never existed where white people's interests were prioritized, often to the point of genocide. That's pretty much the substrate of white people history for fuck's sake.

Even if such a policy were to be implemented (it won't be, snowflakes, calm your tits), it wouldn't be the end of the world. It wouldn't be good health policy, of course, but beyond that, the only harm would be to white people's delicate self esteem.

When you vaccinate without regard to risk factors you are killing people.

Thus you are saying that killing white people doesn't matter.

No, that wasn't what I was saying.

You said the only harm would be to white people's delicate self esteem. That means the harm in dead white people isn't worth considering.

 

[Angry Floof]

No, that wasn't what I was saying.

You said the only harm would be to white people's delicate self esteem. That means the harm in dead white people isn't worth considering.

What I said was, and I copy and paste, "It wouldn't be good health policy, of course, but beyond that..." Why did you leave that part out? No need to answer. It's a rhetorical question.

Anyway, the OP is fundamentally about white fragility and testeria, not honest debate of health policy.