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> I'm not sure what you even mean about public health official greenlighting protests. I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this topic if you think public hea

> I'm not sure what you even mean about public health official greenlighting protests. I don't think we'll see eye to eye on this topic if you think public health authorities had similar stances on earlier protests and BLM protests. > https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27408/w27408.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27408/w274... Interesting. If corroborated, it indicates that as much as cases rose among protest participants, the non-participant population strongly decreased their willingness to engage in other, non-protest activities. Though presumably that would also apply to the non-BLM protests, which raises the question of why public health authorities said that the non-BLM protests would raise COVID rates among participants without also noting that they would decrease COVID rates among non-participants. > That appears to be an argument about saving lives versus returning to normal. Not really: > 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, ” 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.”

slg 6y ago
You are taking that quote from Schmidt out of context which removes the nuance. He isn't simply saying, "let's give the vaccine to brown people". But if you are going to use the excuse to stop explaining yourself because we'll never see eye to eye than I might as well stop putting any effort into this conversation too.
- scarmig 6y ago
  I encourage anyone who doubts it to just read the article. The quote is not out of context and is representative. Ctrl-f for "Schmidt." ETA: https://twitter.com/harald_tweets/status/1339212048471908352 https://twitter.com/harald_tweets/status/1339212048471908352 Harald Schmidt: "Vaccine campaign managers have typically paid more attention to the number of lives they can save than the demographic details of those lives. But Covid's outsized effect on people of color is injecting an element of social justice."
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  It's not out of context, and a great many people have observed the same. Here's Yglesias, not exactly known for right-wing takes: > You’re opting for a strategy that leads to more Black deaths and more white deaths than the “vaccinate seniors first” strategy, but deciding that it’s better for equity and this is what ethics requires. https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly
  - scarmig 6y ago
    As a compromise, even "minority elderly first, then non-minority elderly, then the general minority population, then the general non-minority population" would be better than choosing to focus on essential workers just because they're disproportionately minority (which is valuing abstract signalling for support for racial justice over, you know, actual black lives).
  - slg 6y ago
    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.
    - scarmig 6y ago
      You can view the rubric here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-11/COVID-04-Dooling.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... Key slides: 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.

slg 6y ago

You are taking that quote from Schmidt out of context which removes the nuance. He isn't simply saying, "let's give the vaccine to brown people". But if you are going to use the excuse to stop explaining yourself because we'll never see eye to eye than I might as well stop putting any effort into this conversation too.

scarmig 6y ago
I encourage anyone who doubts it to just read the article. The quote is not out of context and is representative. Ctrl-f for "Schmidt." ETA: https://twitter.com/harald_tweets/status/1339212048471908352 https://twitter.com/harald_tweets/status/1339212048471908352 Harald Schmidt: "Vaccine campaign managers have typically paid more attention to the number of lives they can save than the demographic details of those lives. But Covid's outsized effect on people of color is injecting an element of social justice."
throwaway894345 6y ago
It's not out of context, and a great many people have observed the same. Here's Yglesias, not exactly known for right-wing takes: > You’re opting for a strategy that leads to more Black deaths and more white deaths than the “vaccinate seniors first” strategy, but deciding that it’s better for equity and this is what ethics requires. https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly https://www.slowboring.com/p/vaccinate-elderly
- scarmig 6y ago
  As a compromise, even "minority elderly first, then non-minority elderly, then the general minority population, then the general non-minority population" would be better than choosing to focus on essential workers just because they're disproportionately minority (which is valuing abstract signalling for support for racial justice over, you know, actual black lives).
- slg 6y ago
  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.
  - scarmig 6y ago
    You can view the rubric here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-11/COVID-04-Dooling.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... Key slides: 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.