Vaccine rollout

[kjn]

With the new Covid vaccines available in limited numbers, I've been mulling a bit on the principles used for distribution. That health care personnel should get first dibs is a given for me, but this article shows that the same questions can arise within that group as well: Stanford apologizes after doctors protest vaccine plan that put frontline workers at back of line

There are at least three different principles that I can see guide the vaccine rollout for health care personnel:

1. People most exposed to the vaccine, e.g. those working in Covid wards. But since they are also the most exposed, other protective equipment and procedures can be used there, and no vaccine is 100% effective in any case. You will still need the protective equipment and procedures.


2. People who work with at-risk patients, e.g. like elderly care. But it takes more than a month for full effect for the vaccines that I know of (ten days for partial immunity to appear, then a second dose after a month, and another ten days for full effect), and it protects risk groups but doesn't do much to limit general spread in society.


3. People with lots of general contacts, e.g. primary care staff, pharmacy clerks, emergency care personnel, and so on. The goal here is to protect a group that has lots of contacts with other people, and thus runs both a high risk of unknowingly being exposed to and exposing others to the virus.

It's similar to the thinking I had for the general rollout, where a Swedish study of occupation and risk gave bus and taxi drivers a four to five times higher risk of contracting Covid than the general population. The goal here is to not only protect individual people, but to limit spread in society as quickly as possible.
Crossposted from https://kjn.dreamwidth.org/83471.html. Please comment there.