3 ms·

New York isn't getting rid of their policy because it is medically defensible: - COVID-19 is known to harm people with certain chronic illnesses (e.g. diabetes

New York isn't getting rid of their policy because it is medically defensible: - COVID-19 is known to harm people with certain chronic illnesses (e.g. diabetes) far worse than the general population - There are subsets of the population which are far more likely to not treat or even detect these illnesses - For various socioeconomic reasons that subset happens to correlate very well with race - Ergo, we can assume race as a risk factor for those diseases, and thus a risk factor for COVID-19 Almost all of the opposition I've seen to this policy has been on political grounds, not scientific ones. i.e. people who aren't aware of the racial disparity in COVID-19[0] arguing that this policy constitutes "reverse racism"[1], rather than arguing that the scientific basis for the policy is wrong. My assumption is that most of the outrage is from people who aren't paying attention and want to air grievances about whatever left-wing cultural thing they don't understand. Knowing most of the facts (or at least, what I can reasonably presume to be facts), I can say that this policy is "tolerable" iff it actually works to effectively ration care based on need. This is the sort of thing that needs careful, periodic review and revision, not knee-jerk reactions that just make everyone involved circle their political wagons. [0] Or have selectively forgotten about it, through the same mechanism as the purported Gell-Mann Amnesia effect [1] More generally: most complaints of "reverse racism" do not attempt to actually argue against a particular policy choice (e.g. affirmative action, progressive stack, antiracism etc), but make moral arguments about how racially-aware policies are facially immoral in any set of circumstances.

kyboren 5y ago
> There are subsets of the population which are far more likely to not treat or even detect these illnesses That's an argument for improving detection of these diseases which influence clinical outcomes, not for prioritizing care on the basis of race.
- Latty 5y ago
  This is true of literally all indicators. Should we also not prioritise on age because we could in theory isolate a ton of age-related factors that are comorbid with COVID-19? Where to draw the line is a hard question, maybe we can do better, I agree there should be more visibility and oversight on these things (just like with algorithmic sentencing and so on), but that doesn't make any use of race as a factor anti-white racism.
pseudo0 5y ago
> - For various socioeconomic reasons that subset happens to correlate very well with race > - Ergo, we can assume race as a risk factor for those diseases, and thus a risk factor for COVID-19 So race isn't really a risk factor but rather an imperfect proxy for an actual risk factor (lack of access to healthcare). So why not address the genuine risk factor on the questionnaire? It's simple enough to ask the patient questions like: - Do you have a family doctor? - When was your last physical, blood work, etc? - In the last five years, have you skipped or delayed medical treatment due to cost? > [1] More generally: most complaints of "reverse racism" do not attempt to actually argue against a particular policy choice (e.g. affirmative action, progressive stack, antiracism etc), but make moral arguments about how racially-aware policies are facially immoral in any set of circumstances. Even boomers stopped using the term "reverse racism" years ago, discrimination based on race is racism, full stop.
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  I can just lie and say I've never been to a doctor to get ahead in line, but lying about your race is more difficult. That being said, I don't know if this was the actual reason for not considering prior medical history instead of racial proxies for such. Most rationing schemes aren't that particularly well thought-out. More likely what happened is that when this scheme was being figured out, someone mentioned racial disparities in healthcare, everyone else agreed that it was a good idea to consider that a risk factor, and that was that.

kyboren 5y ago

> There are subsets of the population which are far more likely to not treat or even detect these illnesses That's an argument for improving detection of these diseases which influence clinical outcomes, not for prioritizing care on the basis of race.

Latty 5y ago
This is true of literally all indicators. Should we also not prioritise on age because we could in theory isolate a ton of age-related factors that are comorbid with COVID-19? Where to draw the line is a hard question, maybe we can do better, I agree there should be more visibility and oversight on these things (just like with algorithmic sentencing and so on), but that doesn't make any use of race as a factor anti-white racism.

pseudo0 5y ago

> - For various socioeconomic reasons that subset happens to correlate very well with race > - Ergo, we can assume race as a risk factor for those diseases, and thus a risk factor for COVID-19 So race isn't really a risk factor but rather an imperfect proxy for an actual risk factor (lack of access to healthcare). So why not address the genuine risk factor on the questionnaire? It's simple enough to ask the patient questions like: - Do you have a family doctor? - When was your last physical, blood work, etc? - In the last five years, have you skipped or delayed medical treatment due to cost? > [1] More generally: most complaints of "reverse racism" do not attempt to actually argue against a particular policy choice (e.g. affirmative action, progressive stack, antiracism etc), but make moral arguments about how racially-aware policies are facially immoral in any set of circumstances. Even boomers stopped using the term "reverse racism" years ago, discrimination based on race is racism, full stop.

kmeisthax 5y ago
I can just lie and say I've never been to a doctor to get ahead in line, but lying about your race is more difficult. That being said, I don't know if this was the actual reason for not considering prior medical history instead of racial proxies for such. Most rationing schemes aren't that particularly well thought-out. More likely what happened is that when this scheme was being figured out, someone mentioned racial disparities in healthcare, everyone else agreed that it was a good idea to consider that a risk factor, and that was that.