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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   27598 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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Why should teachers be deprioritized for whiteness when they're going to be in high-risk environments, and spreading it to black kids who will then spread it to their higher-risk families?

This is a reasonable point! And indeed if you read Schmidt's paper his final recommendation is healthcare workers and essential workers who are likely to be exposed to and spread the disease to multiple people. While he discusses race as an impact his final recommendation doesn't actually suggest making the distribution race based directly at all.

Now part of that is because retail, grocery store workers and the like skew minority in the US in any case, but his final position in his paper does indeed seem to be there is no need to discriminate on race. I don't know whether the article only asked him about the race part or only used his answer for that part, but his papers recommendation does not suggest discriminating on race for vaccine distribution in the end.

Now having said that his recommendation turns out to be wrong anyway. There are 2 main vaccine pandemic responses 1) Vaccinate the most vulnerable (this directly reduces deaths) 2) Vaccinate the most likely people to spread the disease, workers who come into contact with many people. The 2nd saves lives indirectly by restricting spread even though you are primarily vaccinating people who individually are not at much risk of the disease.

However it has to be with a vaccine that is effective enough and taken up enough to get to herd immunity levels. Without that option 1) is generally your best shot. But Schmidt was making that recommendation before the vaccines were created so presumably we can't hold him responsible for the fact the vaccines were not as effective as option 2) requires, he didn't know that at the time.

I don't know whether the article only asked him about the race part or only used his answer for that part

I'm starting to feel like some Motte two-buttons meme: "who is worse, the journalist or the public health expert?" Just joking. Well. Maybe 50/50.

Now that the conversation has run its course, I'll say one last time how much I appreciate your patience and thoughtfulness. We don't always agree but I always enjoy our conversations here.

Likewise! And I appreciate you always trying to take the heat out of things, it's not easy. I've rewritten and deleted my own share of posts on things that are hot button topics for me, so I know it's not necessarily easy!

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