Leaders everywhere have been tasked with untangling a major societal dilemma: who gets the vaccine first?
"It’s a real ethical challenge," said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist and the founding director of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine on KCBS Radio's "Ask An Expert" program.
While there is widespread agreement that healthcare workers and people most vulnerable to the disease should get the vaccine first, the question of who deserves to go next presents a challenge.
Dr. Caplan said the decision should be guided by two main principles: those most likely to get sick and most likely to die should get priority.
"Both the nursing homes and the elderly and the people with underlying conditions, they’re at risk of dying. And first responders, people who are in industries where they have high contact with others who are likely to be infected."
Caplan said people who work in groceries, meat processing plants, agriculture and shipping/delivery have been hit the hardest and should also get priority access. But he argued that once you start trying to figure out who's the most essential of the "essential workers," the line becomes too tangled to follow.
"Are we really going to be carefully sort that out and get people to stand in line and say, 'Well you’re a restaurant worker, you get behind me because I’m a cop, and Mr. FedEx guy you stand ahead of me?' I don’t think so."
He said nearly every industry and lobbying group is able to make a case to push its workers farther up in line.
"The only person I can think of at the end of that line who’s not essential is me," he joked. "Everybody in some ways is going to make the 'essential' list…it doesn’t get us far."
Dr. Caplan proposed that after the major high risk groups get their shots, vaccinations should then be opened up to large groups at a time in a first come, first vaccinated system.
Related
