But this is once again removing context from the initial argument. The goal isn't to minimize Black deaths or even overall deaths. This has never been the goal at any step of the way otherwise we would have been in massive and prolonged lockdowns from day 1. The goal is to weigh the need to save lives with the need to let society continue functioning. That is where the essential worker argument comes into play. "Mitigating inequities" is listed as one of three bullet points in one of three categories in the decision making process that favors essential workers. You can't remove that context and pretend it is the overriding factor guiding these decisions.
23, Population-Wide Averted Deaths: Targetting the elderly over essential workers averts up to 6.5% additional deaths (~12% compared to ~5%). This accounts for network effects. That's hundreds of deaths per day.
31, ethics scoring rubric: diversity concerns net the essential worker approach two additional points over the elderly approach, not one as you claimed.
33, overall rubric: the elderly approach was favored until ethics was considered, where, driven by diversity concerns, the essential worker approach was granted 3 overall points as opposed to 1 for the elderly approach.
And the craziest thing is, at no point in the rubric is "fewer people will die" considered a pro on the part of the elderly-first approach.
Preventing deaths has been the goal from the very beginning. This abrupt switch from "we have to save as many lives as possible" to "who cares about total deaths?" is exactly the kind of "progressive" political advocacy that you denied existed at the very beginning of this thread.
For the record, I'm on the side of "save as many lives as possible" and have been since the very beginning.
> This has never been the goal at any step of the way otherwise we would have been in massive and prolonged lockdowns from day 1. The goal is to weigh the need to save lives with the need to let society continue functioning.
I agree with you so far...
> That is where the essential worker argument comes into play.
This is where you lose me. As I understand it, essential workers can continue working whether or not they're vaccinated (yes, some will get seriously sick, but it won't significantly impact the economy). Rather, we want to vaccinate them earlier than non-essential workers because they're more vulnerable by the riskier nature of their work. However, they're not more vulnerable than the elderly and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.
>This is where you lose me. As I understand it, essential workers can continue working whether or not they're vaccinated (yes, some will get seriously sick, but it won't significantly impact the economy). Rather, we want to vaccinate them earlier than non-essential workers because they're more vulnerable by the riskier nature of their work. However, they're not more vulnerable than the elderly
The key point here is that essential workers have a much greater exposure to COVID and much less control over the degree to which they are exposed to COVID. Most elderly people don't work. Those that do (and don't qualify as essential workers) can work from home. It is much easier for these people to minimize exposure. None of this logic has anything to do with race or any other form of diversity. None of this logic is questioning the fact that COVID is more dangerous to the elderly if they contract it. It is simply recognizing that from an ethical perspective it is likely fairer to prioritize the vaccine for people who are least able to minimize their own risk of exposure.
>and yet the CDC recommends prioritizing them over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white while essential workers are disproportionately non-white. At least, this is how I understand the argument.
Diversity factored into 1 of 3 subcategories in 1 of 3 top level categories. It isn't fair to say the "CDC recommends prioritizing [essential workers] over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white" when it is just one piece of a much larger and more nuanced discussion.
> Diversity factored into 1 of 3 subcategories in 1 of 3 top level categories. It isn't fair to say the "CDC recommends prioritizing [essential workers] over the elderly because the elderly are disproportionately white" when it is just one piece of a much larger and more nuanced discussion.
For the two top level categories in the rubric, Science and Implementation, the elderly-first approach had achieved a score of 6/6, while the essential workers-first approach had achieved a score of 5/6. Elderly-first was favored at that point.
For the third top level category, Ethics, elderly-first was given a score of 1/3, while essential workers-first was given a score of 3/3, which brought essential workers-first to 8/9 as opposed to the elderly-first score of 7/9, driving the decision.
As part of the subcategories of Ethics, essential workers-first netted 2 points from the subcategory "Mitigate Health inequities," the first a positive point for it because "Racial and ethnic minority groups disproportionately represented in many essential industries" and the second against the elderly-first because "Racial and ethnic minority groups under-represented among adults >65." That is what drove the outsize result in Ethics.
Here's a direct question for you: diversity considerations netted the essential workers-first approach 2 points. Would you say that "significantly greater number of lives saved" should be worth the same as diversity (2 points), a bit less (1), or a bit more (3)? Or do you go with the rubric and say the number of lives saved merits no consideration at all, because it's not an ethical concern on par with diversity?
You can remove the "Mitigate health inequities" subcategory and the essential workers approach still comes out ahead in the ethics category due to the "Promote Justice" category which is the fairness of controlling exposure reason I detailed in my last comment.
Minimizing deaths isn't being ignored, it plays a factor in every single one of the top level categories. It simply isn't a line item itself. It also needs to be weighed with other health considerations. For example, the essential worker approach reduces the number of infections and we should all know by now that COVID shouldn't be judged in a purely binary way with deaths versus recoveries.
Also I am not putting a value judgement on these approaches. I am explaining the way I interpret the judging criteria.
