An ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania sparked a heated debate suggesting that essential workers should get priority for the coronavirus vaccine over vulnerable older people, because workers are more likely to be minorities.
“Larger populations are whiter,” Harald Schmidt told the New York Times. “Society is structured in a way that allows them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more, we can start to level the playing field a bit. “
Centers for Disease Control should use its own “social vulnerability index” to decide how to protect older people at higher risk, Schmidt said. The index uses census measures such as poverty, unemployment, disability, housing status and education to determine which communities are most likely to feel the impact of a public health emergency. At least 18 states plan to use the index, he told The Times.
At least 221,000 of the people who died of COVID-19 were over the age of 65, or about 80 percent of the total deaths recorded as of Wednesday, according to CDC data. Those over the age of 85 are 630 times more likely to die from the virus than those aged 18 to 29.
The director of CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, has said he believes priority should be given to people aged 70 or over living with children or grandchildren, the Daily Mail reported.
New York nursing homes are expected to receive vaccines starting Monday.
Schmidt’s comments provoked criticism from those who pointed out that residents of nursing homes cannot distance themselves socially and can be of all ages.
“It’s okay to ask for the vaccination of essential and front-line workers,” the commenter said Brenda Tippin, who identifies herself as a biologist. “But it was necessary to elaborate and identify the large population as ‘whiter’ and to point it out as an assumption that they had more privileged lives and that it was time to balance the playing field. Inexcusable!”
Others argued that the elderly who have been isolated for months have “literally died of loneliness” and that they argued that the elderly “not only are not essential; they are actually quite expendable. “
His mentions on Twitter were filled with memes that said things like “Old Live Matter” and screenshots showing a graph that places white men with the shortest life expectancy, at 76.71 years.
“I don’t understand how you can be considered an ethics teacher,” posted a user with the handle Portia Smith. “Your worldview is anything but. Creepy “.