If you had a limited supply of what is, for many people, a life-saving vaccine, how would you go about distributing it? Would you pick the people most susceptible to dying of that virus, or would you pick some arbitrary, racist standard? When it comes to coronavirus booster vaccine eligibility, Vermont did the latter.
Vermonters are eligible for a Pfizer booster shot if they got their second dose of the vaccine at least six months ago, depending on their background. Assuming they’re not deemed high-risk by the state or working a job deemed essential by the government, Vermont’s general population is eligible for the vaccine booster only if they are 65 or older — unless they’re either not white or living with someone who is not white. The latter groups of people are eligible for the vaccine booster if they are 18 years old or older, according to the Vermont Department of Public Health.
Generally, who is healthier: the average 64-year-old white person or the average 18-year-old racial minority? It makes sense that the state would ration the limited supply of the booster since it has to make sure the most vulnerable groups have a chance to get the booster first, but that’s not what it’s doing. Instead, Vermont is basing the law on race — which is racist.
Younger people across the world are fortunate that coronavirus is far less likely to kill them than it is people over the age of 30; fewer than 4,000 people under 30 have died from the virus in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a virus that has killed about 700,000 people in the United States.
Unfortunately, Vermont’s latest racist policy is not a surprise because, in early April, the state made people ages 16 and up eligible for the vaccine if they weren’t white at a time when whites had to be 50 or older.
If Vermont wants to help people and try to save some lives, lowering the booster eligibility age for the general population regardless of race would have been the smart move — or expanding the list of medical conditions that allow someone to receive the booster shot. Instead, leadership is pandering to the liberals in the state who likely feel like they’re making up for the country’s past sins. There are ways to help minority communities — be it combating credentialism, restrictive zoning, or unfair criminal justice practices — but misusing medical resources in a pandemic that has killed about 700,000 people is U.S. is idiotic.
Plus, the government pitting races against each other may lead to more division and resentment among groups. That’s not the way to make racism less prominent in our society; that could make it worse.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
