“Equity.” That’s the top word for the vaccine now. The New York Times has pitched it (more than once) and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has embraced it. States are putting it into their plans. And the people who advocate it are lying about the underlying meaning.
The DailyMail sums it up:
Every US state has been advised to consider ethnic minorities as a critical and vulnerable group in their vaccine distribution plans, according to Centers for Disease Control guidance.
As a result, half of the nation’s states have outlined plans that now prioritize black, Hispanic and indigenous residents over white people in some way, as the vaccine rollout begins.
The New York Times article everyone is talking about this weekend is theoretically about whether it’s more important to slow deaths by prioritizing the elderly, or slow infection by prioritizing essential workers. But reading through the whole article reveals a lot more, especially when they quote their experts.
For example:
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, ” Dr. 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.”
After presenting dozens of quotes like that form various so-called experts, the Times writes (emphasis added): “Still, some people believe it is wrong to give racial and socioeconomic equity more weight than who is most likely to die.”
Well ain’t that STILL just grand? Like, “can you believe that some selfish whites STILL think they should be alive??”
The article goes on to quote a former Senate aide who said those selfish people “need to have bombproof, fact-based, public-health-based reasons for why one group goes ahead of another.”
On social media, “experts” are trying to just that, and failing. Like this guy, who is being retweeted and quoted out the wazoo by the woke horde. Gregg Gonsalves.
Gregg works in epidemiology and research at Yale, and he starts right off the bat with woke genuflects.
These are usually men, who will assume expertise because they've always been told they were the smartest in the room, were given a platform because of who they are, and feel no sense of humility when they decide to ramble off and take down others. 2/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
Here I am talking about @NateSilver538 @mattyglesias and @DouthatNYT who have decided they are the arbiters of truth in science and public health. 3/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
“These are usually men” is a great place to start out proving you’re here for the science and facts and not the politics, Gregg.
Gregg then goes into the deets, stomping about how sciencey it all is.
All three believe age-based allocation is the only way to triage vaccine delivery and they've been scornful of the deliberation of #ACIP for talking about things like equity, essential workers, etc. 4/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
Can’t hurt to do a little more Woke CV-padding right?
Don't get me wrong. I am all for criticizing scientists. I did it for years as an AIDS activist but what I think differentiates us from them is that we dug deep into the science, had mentorship from some great researchers, took on problems, analyzed them sometimes for years. 6/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
Gregg then goes on sarcastically, with snarky sniping at the targets of his scientific wrath for like, a million tweets, before finally saying anything related to the topic. And it’s another dead giveaway.
Politics. No politics in public health please for @DouthatNYT. No conception that public health in its practice is hemmed in by politics on every side. 17/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
He’s mocking the idea that politics (read:wokeness) doesn’t belong in science. He’s MOCKING the idea that it DOESN’T belong in science. The scientist!
And that’s when he starts trying to play his trick. It’s not very well constructed, quite transparent. I suspect Gregg, who is usually male, has always been told he’s the smartest in the room, and given a platform because of who he is.
From the politics that make us sick–we call them the social determinants of health (I just heard Ross faint) to the policies we have to fight for to keep people healthy, public health is intertwined with politics, as it is a public not private science. 18/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
Oh bravo. Standing ovation for that tweet, everyone. He combined sarcasm, wokeness, an appeal to the “public good” with a not-too-subtle rationalizing rewrite of woke “equity” concepts as simply the very science sounding “social determinants of health.”
Finally, NINETEEN TWEETS IN, he gets to what he came here for.
What sends Ross off the deep end is that racial equity is being raised in the vaccine allocation discussions. Once we talk race, then it's politics for Ross, and he gets to weigh in. Ross always gets to weigh in. 19/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
Racial. Equity.
And when young people die? They are often again from African-American, Latino communities. This is what the data shows. So discussing racial equity in health isn't a conversation about affirmative action @Harvard. It's about understanding who gets sick, who dies. 21/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
See he is pretending the woke concept of “equity” is the same as discussing risk factors, which of course do include things like general health, availability of care, and environment that can be affected by income, geography, and more.
Yes a strong case can be made for age-based triaging of vaccine allocation. It doesn't take a pundit to see that. 22/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
But in addition to age, race/ethnicity are a strong factor in predicting death from #COVID19 in the US. It's just the facts. 23/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
So if you wanted to frame vaccine allocation around preventing the most deaths, you'd go with age+race/ethnicity. 24/
— Gregg Gonsalves (@gregggonsalves) December 20, 2020
… and therefore HE is the one being dispassionately scientific and data-driven by saying prioritization based on ‘equity’ and ‘disparity’ and YOU are the one politicizing it.
Hogwash.
These two paragraphs from the New York Times article ALONE gives the lie to his equivalence.
An independent committee of medical experts that advises the C.D.C. on immunization practices will soon vote on whom to recommend for the second phase of vaccination — “Phase 1b.” In a meeting last month, all voting members of the committee indicated support for putting essential workers ahead of people 65 and older and those with high-risk health conditions.
Historically, the committee relied on scientific evidence to inform its decisions. But now the members are weighing social justice concerns as well, noted Lisa A. Prosser, a professor of health policy and decision sciences at the University of Michigan.
“the members are weighing social justice concerns”
Yeah, see, that’s the ACIP they’re talking about. The one that Gregg is trying to have a Twitter “moment” over.
Because that is what they actually mean. It’s not some mere scientific consideration of risk factors, it’s a distribution plan that is accounting for woke concepts of social justice and historic disparity or inequity.
If it was ACTUALLY about the availability of treatment, the socioeconomic status, the lifelong lack of proper care, environmental and geographic risk factors, and all that, then they wouldn’t HAVE to use race. They could use lifelong lack of care, environmental and geographic risk factors, socioeconomic status, availability of treatment and all that IRRESPECTIVE OF RACE.
But it is not actually about those things, as Gregg knows. As Gregg EMBRACES. Remember all his woke dog whistling to start his little thread? Yeah. It’s about what it is always about.
The Daily Mail describes how this is working in practice:
“Some states have made even more specific plans to prioritize communities of color, with 12 states specifically mentioning efforts to partner with healthcare providers in areas with a large minority population to reach ‘diverse populations’, according to Kaiser Family Foundation.”
It is being used in states such as Michigan where minority status and language spoken could be taken into consideration when deciding how high a priority you are for receiving a vaccine.
It reported that California, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Indiana have listed fairness, equity, or both as key principles for vaccine distribution.
This goes on and on. There’s more on Twitter under the hashtag #ACIP.
None of us have ever heard of Gregg from Yale before, but today he’s being quoted and cited far and wide, because he did that thing that Twitter is designed for. He was nasty to conservatives, pompous about his politics, treated woke precepts as scientific truths, and did it in that special virtue signal language that the libs and the people who run that awful site adore. And that translates into influence, and then policy.
Josh Barro noted that Nate Silver (yes, the polling data guy) in calling out the first version of the ACIP recommendations to go viral, was not in the wrong.
Incidentally, Nate Silver is not the one who has embarrassed himself in the public conversation over this. What’s embarrassing is treating public health experts as high priests whose ethical analysis may not be questioned by laypersons.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) December 20, 2020
And NeverTrump MSNBC regular Tom Nichols of COURSE bought into Gregg’s thread hook, line, and sinker.
Brutal counterpoint here from @gregggonsalves. I have stayed out of this one, but this is an important rejoinder: https://t.co/1dyNwyeVws
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 20, 2020
Not to mention journalists galore.
Thread worth reading: https://t.co/NHmuMjRYdv
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) December 20, 2020
quite a thread and worth reading. Not sure if I've ever seen a Lysistrata reference on twitter before, (certainly not in the context of bioethics). https://t.co/HNDOgD1PHD
— Joanne Kenen (@JoanneKenen) December 20, 2020
So yeah, there are a hundred other Gregg’s talking about this right now, but I chose this one.
Most of them are arguing about the Essential Worker vs. Age conundrum. Guess we’re supposed to ignore/accept the “kill whitey” part.
Here’s an exit thought: If they brand everyone who gets a vaccine to give them more liberty and freedom of movement, and they also decide who gets it or who doesn’t based on race … well just think on that one, y’all.