Schmidt told the Washington Examiner that it would not be a “fair characterization” to describe his comments as a “race based approach” and pointed to an essay articulating his approach in more detail.

“The fundamental point is this: Among the population 65 and older, many can live socially distanced safely and with relatively less inconvenience until they receive a vaccine,” Schmidt said. “But far more among the essential workers don’t have that option, esp [sic] frontline workers. For them, getting a vaccine sooner can literally be of existential importance. Therefore, vaccinating all healthy people 65+ before essential workers is likely to make racial and economic disparities worse. And likewise, within each population group, it is therefore critical to use a measure such as a social vulnerability index, to make sure that more vulnerable people are offered a vaccine first.”

Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard University epidemiologist, said that teachers should not be treated as essential workers when it comes to passing out the vaccine if the goal is to “reduce health inequities,” in part because “they are often very white.”

“Teachers have middle-class salaries, are very often white, and they have college degrees,” Lipsitch said. “Of course, they should be treated better, but they are not among the most mistreated of workers.”

When asked by the Washington Examiner whether or not it was his belief that reducing health inequities should be factored into the vaccine rollout, Lipsitch’s answer was yes.

“It is my personal belief, which I hold as a citizen and someone who is informed about the extent of health inequities through my professional work,” Lipsitch said. “It is a question of values, informed by science, so I understand that others may differ on this point.”

Lipsitch added that his quoted comment in the article is purely factual but could possibly be misconstrued.

“The ACIP framework lists reducing inequity as a goal,” Lipsitch said, referring to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that is tasked with constructing the vaccine’s distribution plan. “I simply said that the goal is not particularly served by the prioritization of teachers (which I support for other reasons).”

“I do not believe I stated what is paraphrased ‘teachers should not be included as essential workers, if a central goal of the committee is to reduce health inequities.’ I may have said something that could be mistaken for that. I just think essential workers, and those who should be prioritized to reduce inequities, are overlapping but not identical groups of people,” he said.

A senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute disagreed with Lipsitch’s comment in the New York Times article and provided a race-based conclusion of her own while arguing that teachers should be prioritized in the vaccine’s distribution because their students are mostly “black and brown.”

“When you talk about disproportionate impact and you’re concerned about people getting back into the labor force, many are mothers, and they will have a harder time if their children don’t have a reliable place to go,” she said. “And if you think generally about people who have jobs where they can’t telework, they are disproportionately Black and brown. They’ll have more of a challenge when child care is an issue.”

The article has been criticized on Twitter in recent days, including a thread from a user named Jason Compson, an apparent reference to a character from a William Faulkner novel, who slammed the doctors cited in the story.

“So to sum up, in this single article by @JanHoffmanNYT, three experts — Schdmit, Lipsitch, and Gould — say that more white people dying will ‘level the playing field’, teachers are ‘too white’ to deserve a vaccine, but that their ‘Black and Brown’ students make them deserving,” Compson tweeted.

Lipsitch took issue with that characterization and responded to Compson on Twitter.

“I have never said teachers are nonessential or that their race/income makes them nonessential,” Lipsitch wrote. “Lots of people trying to stoke false arguments have read it that way, but I didn’t say it, I don’t believe it, and in fact I believe and have said the opposite.”

When asked by Compson if he was misquoted by the New York Times, Lipsitch said, “My quote does not use the word essential, on purpose. They are essential, are not the ones to prioritize for equity reasons, apart from the points made by others about how their absence enhances inequity.”

Others joined in on the criticism, including MSNBC contributor and Commentary Associate Editor Noah Rothman, who referred to Schmidt’s comment as “ghastly.”

“Yes, this actually happened: an ‘expert in ethics and health policy’ said that the elderly — who are at far greater risk from #Covid and have fewer vaccine side effects — shouldn’t get the vaccine first,” former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson tweeted. “Why? Because the elderly are more likely to be white. Good times.”

Schmidt took to Twitter to defend his contribution to the article, as well as posting that he “never espoused race-only prioritization.”

“Note: 1) never espoused race-only prioritization,'” Schmidt tweeted. “2) Key: many 65+ can live socially distanced safely, w relatively less inconvenience until vax. But far more among essential workers can’t, esp frontline workers.”

The professor added, “Vaccinating all healthy people 65+ before essential workers is likely to make racial and economic disparities worse. So must focus on vulnerability across, and within population groups—disadvantage index helps.”

Race and ethnicity have reportedly been at the forefront of discussions on how to distribute the coronavirus vaccine most effectively.

“If you look at the burden of disease and death in the U.S., it is disproportionately impacting communities of color,” said Grace Lee, a member of the ACIP, told the Washington Examiner earlier this month. “It is heartbreaking to realize how much of the social and racial inequities that exist impact the health of these communities.”

In California, a vaccine advisory committee is weighing whether or not to factor “historical injustice” into the vaccine distribution decision-making process.

The first coronavirus vaccine was distributed in the United States earlier this week to healthcare workers on the front lines fighting the pandemic. On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence received the vaccine live on television in an attempt to demonstrate the safety and ease of the process.

“Building confidence in the vaccine is what brings us here this morning,” Pence told reporters.