Different Takes: Pay Your Way To Get The Vaccine; Step Aside If You’re Wealthy And White; Please Stay Home
Opinion writers express views about funding and receiving the vaccine and how to spend the holidays.
Stat:
Let The Ultra-Rich And Influential Skip The Line For Covid-19 Vaccines? Hear Me Out
It’s one thing to talk about vaccinating the majority of people living in the United States to stop the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s another thing to do it — and pay for it. Epidemiologists tell us we need 75% or more of Americans to be immune to Covid-19 to create herd immunity. Much of that immunity will come from vaccinations. Recent polls show only about 60% of Americans are willing to take the vaccine. Visualize a line of people willing to take the shots: As of now, it’s much too short. (Alan Levine, 12/22)
The Detroit News:
Are Some People 'Too White' To Get COVID-19 Vaccine?
Are teachers “too white” to get early, priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine? In a New York Times article Friday, several medical professionals suggested that decisions over distributing the limited doses of COVID-19 vaccines are not based on the most efficient way to prevent deaths, but on consideration of social justice. For example, older Americans are at much higher risk of dying from the coronavirus than the general population. But front-line workers should be prioritized over the elderly and vulnerable in part because “older populations are whiter,” says Harald Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. (Michael Graham, 12/21)
Sacramento Bee:
As CA COVID-19 Rates Surge, Sacramento Doctor Speaks Out: Please Stay Home
Dear Sacramento: Please, stay home for the holidays. I am making this plea because I’ve seen what can happen if you don’t. I’m a Sacramento Emergency Medicine doctor who volunteered in New York City after COVID-19 devastated that city. Now I’m watching the cases in Sacramento double every two weeks as our healthcare infrastructure nears a breaking point. I’m asking you to stay home because I don’t want to see any more preventable death. I care about you and your loved ones, and I know healthcare providers like myself need your help. (Alex Schmalz, 12/20)
Louisville Courier-Journal:
COVID-19 Vaccine Safety: We Must Set Aside Our Fears And Dispel Myths
COVID-19 has paralyzed all of humanity regardless of race, religion, gender, socioeconomic status or sexual orientation. It has reminded us that our lives on planet Earth are intertwined and our survival as a species is dependent on one another. I am a physician who has worked on the front lines of health care from the outset of this global pandemic. Daily, I bear witness to the catastrophe of this deadly virus in long-term care facilities and acute care hospitals. (Muhammad Babar, 12/22)
The Hill:
COVID-19 Vaccines: A 'D-Day' Moment In The War On A Pandemic
This past Monday was a historic day, a literal shot in the arm in the human war against a devastating virus. It is appropriate to call it “V-Day” in America, a comparison made by four-star Gen. Gus Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed in charge of vaccine deployment, to D-Day, when we landed on the beaches of Normandy during World War II to begin the liberation of Europe. (Marc Siegel, 12/21)
CNN:
I Got The Vaccine And I'm Telling My Friends
This week, I received the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. As a frontline health care worker, I was one of the fortunate few in the first wave of eligibility. I was so excited -- it was as if Christmas had come early. (Janice Blanchard, 12/21)
The New York Times:
The Pandemic's Inhuman Demands
The journalist Anne Helen Petersen recently asked, on Twitter, for articles about the “long-term psychological effects” of the pandemic. She soon noticed that many of the replies were about the damage it was doing to children. Seeing this crystallized something I’d been dimly aware of. The strange politics of the coronavirus have created a taboo, at least in certain progressive circles, in talking too much about the emotional suffering wrought by nine months of purgatorial isolation. It’s easier to discuss what it’s doing to our kids, because we feel justified in trying to spare them pain. (Michelle Goldberg, 12/21)
The Wall Street Journal:
A Pandemic Of Misinformation
America has been paralyzed by death and fear for nearly a year, and the politicization of the pandemic has made things worse by adding misinformation and vitriol to the mix. With vaccines finally being administered, we should be entering a joyous phase. Instead we endure still more inflammatory rhetoric and media distortion. Americans need to understand three realities. First, all 50 states independently directed and implemented their own pandemic policies. In every case, governors and local officials were responsible for on-the-ground choices—every business limit, school closing, shelter-in-place order and mask requirement. No policy on any of these issues was set by the federal government, except those involving federal property and employees. (President Trump's former special adviser Scott W. Atlas, 12/21)
