Texas gives vaccination priority to elderly over essential workers, ditching CDC guidelines
Gov. Greg Abbott’s COVID-19 vaccination draws outrage from the continually outraged.
I recently noted that the Centers for Disease Control proposed guidelines prioritizing “essential workers” over the elderly, using race to justify the decision. These recommendations run counter to those issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and scientific evidence that the pandemic would be quelled more quickly if the more vulnerable populations were protected first.
Yes, the CDC guidelines were not mandates, and states could opt to take a different approach. Texas did, selecting the priority based on reason and epidemiology.
Texas is deviating from the CDC’s recommendations on who should receive the COVID-19 vaccine next.
The CDC suggests teachers, first responders and other essential workers should be next in line.
Texas says it will concentrate on people 65 years and older, and those with certain chronic medical conditions in what’s known as Phase 1-B.
The state will concentrate vaccine distribution on the elderly and those with underlying health conditions in the next phase, which is expected to roll out in a couple of weeks.
“The focus on people who are age 65 and older or who have comorbidities will protect the most vulnerable populations,” said Imelda Garcia, chair of the state Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel and DSHS associate commissioner for laboratory and infectious diseases. “This approach ensures that Texans at the most severe risk from COVID-19 can be protected across races and ethnicities and regardless of where they work.”
The vaccine, which arrived in Texas on Dec. 14, has been available so far only to front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. There are nearly 1.9 million Texans in that group, so it will likely take a few weeks before the state transitions to the next phase, state health officials said.
Gov. Greg Abbot received the vaccination, in hopes to inspire the public to get their shots when more doses became available. This, of course, led to outrage by the continually outraged.
The Texas Medical Association applauded Abbott’s move, saying in part: “The governor is leading by example by getting the shot.”
But many online say Abbott should not have been first in line to receive the vaccine due to his insistence on keeping state businesses open throughout most of the pandemic — which is often attributed to the worsening numbers.
Just last month, Abbott said he would not authorize any more business shutdowns, saying, it’s time to “put shutdowns behind us.”
Dr. John Biggan, a data scientist at the ACH Child and Family Services and former Democratic Congressional candidate blasted Abbott on Twitter, saying in part: “Greg Abbott got the COVID vaccine today. Yesterday, he and his Republican cronies decided to disregard CDC recommendations that teachers receive the vaccine as part of Phase 1B.”
As states are the laboratories of democracy, it will be interesting to see how Texas will compare with other states who adopt the CDC guidelines and robust restrictions. I am betting that the Lone Star state will continue to be a beacon to many more blue state refugees.
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Teachers do not need to be first in line for the vaccine, unless a teacher meets the criteria for group 1b. Teachers generally are young to middle-aged and have few health care issues. They can afford to wait while we vaccinate the frail and elderly.
A smart teachers union (hah) would volunteer this and build up some good will.
I’m impressed by how quickly the progressives can flip-flop on an issue.
OUR FIRST CONSIDERATION SHOULD BE TO OUR GREAT DEMOCRAT LEADERS. SAN FRAN NAN COMES TO MIND AND THAT CHUCK SHUMER WELL THEY’RE BOTH ACES. THEY’RE THE THOUGHT LEADERS OF THE NATION. AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ABOUT SANDY CORTES. AOC IS AN UP AND COMER. AKS YERSELF WHAT A POVERTY STRICKEN NATION WE’D BE IF THESE STALWARTS LEFT THE SCENE. WOE WOULD BE US.
I got the sarcasm, but I see somebody didn’t.
I down thumbed for all caps.
“A smart teachers union (hah) would volunteer this and build up some good will.”
Don’t hold your breath
Teacher’s unions believe themselves to be in a position that doesn’t require good will or good faith on their part.
I can see giving teachers a privileged slot in line just to get the unions to shut up and reopen schools, which will also be necessary to getting everything else open, too.
But not until after the most vulnerable are vaccinated first. This is just special pleading.
Nope. Let parents experience the full beneficence of the teachers unions and their government schools. Maybe that will wake them up.
Why give Teachers first crack at the vaccine over the elderly. It’s the elderly that are at more risk of dying if they get Covid. Heck many if not most teachers are not even in classrooms teaching. It’s all virtual in most states. Here in Pa where I live the only teachers actually in classrooms are private and Catholic schools. They don’t seem to have a problem going to school and actually teaching their students. The Teachers unions control everything. They determine if and when the teachers will go back to school. Im my township where it’s virtual, the teachers got a 2% pay raise. As if they really deserve that with thousands in the area not able to collect a paycheck due to the Governors mandates that put many businesses down for good. Also in Pa, our governor did the same as Cuomo, sending Covid patients to recover in nursing homes. Well we all know how that worked out. Yet Wolf and Cuomo still won’t accept responsibility for the deaths they caused by their stupidity.
Would these be the very same teachers who can’t be in the controlled environment of a classroom with all the safety barriers in place, also be the same people who I come to meet out shopping in the grocery store, Khols, Target and Walmart?
“…Lone Star state will continue to be a beacon to many more blue state refugees.”
Unfortunately they will frequently not be the sort of people who will leave NY and CA politics behind.
It’s on our list of destinations. We sure as shit aren’t voting blue.
Come to Florida if you are intending to vote red! No state income tax and very few WuFlu restrictions. I still get a giggle from cloth mask wearing tourists.
Just the other day, a couple came into my corner store as I was there and asked for the key to the restroom. It was out of order (no plumber until Monday). So I went out to my car, and this couple was still out there, so I asked them which way they were going so I could tell them where there nearest public restrooms were. They fretted that they were all closed “because of the coronavirus,” I valiantly failed to laugh in their faces and told them not to worry because this is Florida. They laughed, they got it.
We aren’t locked down here (though, as an infuriating side note, our actual taxpayer-funded services like the DMV are ‘appointment only’. . . with a minimum of a three week wait!).
“”our actual taxpayer-funded services like the DMV are ‘appointment only’. . . with a minimum of a three week wait!).””
Same here, but the other side of the coin is that when I went to get my DL renewed, I only had to wait about 10 minutes for a clerk instead of a 2 hour line.
Only if you aren’t in any of the three SE Florida counties. You pretty much can’t go anywhere without a mask down here, and they show no signs of letting up.
Race, race, race.
So our lefty bien pensant want to have Negroes and Hispanics go the front of the COVID19 vaccine receiving line.
“It’s necessary because these people are at greater risk.”
Maybe, maybe not.
So lets say that this Some-races-are-in-greater-danger//We-aren’t-all-equal thinking takes root. It’s gonna come at a cost.
If black and latino physiologies are different than the physiologies of whites that opens a subject which the bien pensant thought they had long ago closed.
for example, google, “The Myth of Innate Racial Differences Between White and Black People’s Bodies”
If there are physiological differences vis-a-vis COVID-19, perhaps those differences explain other difference between the races. Oh say, like the dreaded, persistent Achievement Gap.
Hey, they’re the ones re-opening this door.
They want to be at the front of the line. If the vaccine is OK, they will be OK with it. If the vaccine turns out the back flyer, and makes a lot of people sick, the tribal chieftains, I mean the Reverends”, will scream “Tuskegee!” at the top of their lungs. Count on it.
Diversity [dogma], not limited to racism, and exclusion. That said, early treatments and vaccination for the most vulnerable. Nutritional supplements to mitigate progress across populations.
It’s all about wealth redistribution. Elderly whites possess too much money….
And, they are white.
Prioritize the vaccine based on IQ. People over 150 go first .people 140-150go second. People 120 to 140 cthird people 100 to 120 go next ,and then since the average SAT scores of education majors is less than 1000 the teachers go last
CDC guidelines will be revised in accordance with the recommendation of the advisory panel: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/covid-2020-12-18/card/cOebBNpFmPpKduXx2Lrx
Texas is not abandoning CDC guidelines. My state (Nevada) is also adopting the new guidelines. (CDC web sites may or may not have been updated yet). The members of the advisory panel seem to have realized that if preventing deaths is a priority, then moving seniors into the priority target for vaccine better represents “science”.
The CDC’s latest puts “essential” workers (including teachers) on a par with those over 75 or with co-morbidities for the second priority level (1b).
Texas is wisely putting those over 65 or with co-morbidities at the second level ahead of the “essential” workers.
This statement – “The CDC suggests teachers, first responders and other essential workers should be next in line.” – is incorrect. It should read that the CDC is putting essential workers AND people over 75 or with co-morbidities next in line.
This is a change from the initial, idiotic social justice recommendation that was modified due to public pressure. Clearly, to me, the CDC should have fully corrected their error by prioritizing the most vulnerable, but they did not and people will still die unnecessarily in states where their recommendations are followed.
The public deserves to know who the idiots are at the CDC who promoted black racism. They need to receive justice.
Florida is doing the same. GMTA I guess.
“…giving priority to elderly over essential workers.” Yeah, but if you’re an elderly essential worker you’re in like Flynn.
My position remains the same. I don’t get shots or vaccinations, especially ones as many red flags as this one.
Yep, I’m happy that millions of people are foolish enough to be guinea pigs for untested vaccines, especially the mRNA vaccines that have always failed FDA approval prior to COVID. The question is whether the FDA is going to help the vaccine manufacturers cover up any problems.
Fine. You refuse, so there’ll be more for those who need and want it.
An “Emergency Use Authorization” isn’t enough to convince me to take the vaccine. We simply do not know enough about how mRNA vaccines work or even if they are actually a viable way to vaccinate people. Pfizer/BioNTech saw an opportunity to use millions of people as experimental guinea pigs for their unproven mRNA technology and took the opportunity for their own profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
They already do. For every vaccine out there. They’ll just add the covid vaccines to the list and that will be it.
We do know something about mRNA vaccines: no prior attempt at gaining FDA approval for one was successful, and Pfizer/BioNTech have not announced a breakthrough in mRNA technology. That suggests to me that their covid vaccines will have the same problems, multiplied thousands-fold, that their prior failures did because it is exactly the same underlying biotech.
My recommendation would be retirement centers and their staff at the same time as the people who *directly* come in contact with tested-positive Covid patients in hospitals (highest probability of spread). Then the rest of the elderly with the rest of the hospital and health care workers. At that point, fatalities should drop like rocks, and we can start on whoever.
My understanding was that these were only proposed guidelines, which were withdrawn after the public backlash. So Texas is fully compliant with the CDC’s actual recommendations. Or have I got that wrong?
Funny how just a few weeks ago Cuomo was shouting to the rooftops that my community was at such a high risk, so much higher than any other, that he had to impose punitive restrictions on us for our own good, but now we’re suddenly told that we’re actually at low risk and black and Hispanic neighborhoods have to get the vaccine before us, and they’re furious that apparently one of our clinics managed to score some for healthcare workers, the elderly, and the vulnerable.
Funny..as in Ha Ha !!
Or the NY version – Ya can’t make this BS up!