Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Jan 2021
Who goes first? Government leaders and prioritisation of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
20 January 2021 - The vice president, Senate majority leader, House speaker, surgeon general, and members of Congress were among the first people vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States.
The president-elect, incoming first lady, vice president-elect, and her husband were also vaccinated in the first phase. Yet prioritisation frameworks created by expert panels and adopted by states do not grant government leaders any special status, and giving them priority raises important questions of fairness and transparency.
As vaccination proceeds, will other political or institutional leaders, or even celebrities and elite athletes, decide that prioritisation plans don’t apply to them?
