Vaccine Rollout - Should The Elderly or Essential Workers be the First Recipients?

There was another disturbing moment where they were talking about the rollout of the vaccine. And Jimmy, who was that guy that was... He was advocating for not rolling it out to elderly people, because elderly people are predominantly white, and that we should instead give it to people that are essential workers first, because essential workers are more often people of color, and that this will balance things out. Like literally say, if more white people die, it'll be better, because we'll have more of a balance. This came from the CDC's Advisory Committee, responsible for deciding who should get the vaccine first or not. Yes. Who was the guy that said it, though? There was one person... Everybody blew a fucking gasket, because that is really a crazy thing to say. The problem is, I don't remember the name of who said it, but all members of this Advisory Committee supported it, except for one guy who was like, this is not based on science. Because if you look at the statistics, over 80% of people dying in this country from COVID are people over the age of 65. If you want to save lives, you would give it to elderly people. And like 50% of people being hospitalized over 65. So yes, if you want to save lives, if you want to make it so our ICUs aren't at max capacity, then prioritize the vaccine based on age instead of occupation. There is a concern, though, that essential workers are the ones who spread it more easily, because they have to be in contact with people. I'm glad you mentioned that. So it's not that cut and dry. So these essential workers that are getting it, these folks have to be at work. So they have to be at work, they're more likely to contract it. If they get the vaccine and they're protected from it, then it will spread less likely. So there's two things there. First is who the CDC designates as an essential worker. I'll get to that in a second. But all of this is built on the assumption that this vaccine will prevent the transmission of the virus, which is what we're hearing from some so-called health experts, which we're hearing from some in the media. It's not been scientifically proven. I've gone back and looked at the applications that and the data that was put forward to the FDA to get approval from Pfizer and Moderna. And these vaccines have been scientifically established to largely prevent serious health complications and death from COVID once you're vaccinated. That has been scientifically established. Nowhere in their trials was it scientifically established that these vaccines would prevent the transmission of the virus. And so I see it almost every day and it's incredibly dangerous where media outlets and some people who are healthcare professionals are propagating this. This I mean, it's a lie. It's not true. But they're basically saying that that, well, you know, people who have to go and work in these jobs that are essential workers, they need to get vaccinated so they don't spread it or even, you know, first responders. We had we had a local news station in Hawaii who shared a really emotional interview from a first responder, younger woman who had just gotten vaccinated. And she said, like, finally, I can go and visit my grandmother and not be worried that I am going to give her the virus because I'm taking care of people who have COVID every day. And what is so dangerous about that is she got the vaccine. If she has then gone and visited with her grandmother, she could still. And Dr. Fauci has talked about this and others because this virus is lives inside your nasal passage. You can be vaccinated and you can still pass it on and it could have a devastating effect on someone, for example, who is elderly and who is vulnerable to this and who has not gotten the vaccine. So anyone who is saying that, well, we have to vaccinate these people or those people based on their occupation because we don't want the virus to spread, it has not yet it has not been scientifically established that the vaccines prevent that. And this is why they're all, you know, Fauci and these other guys, they're like, even if you're vaccinated, you have to still wear the mask, you still have to do social distancing because of the potential for that. So I think that's such an important thing for people to know, especially as people are getting vaccinated, not to have this false sense of security that just because you've gotten the vaccine, now you can go visit grandma in the nursing home because you're not going to expose her potentially or put her at risk. But the second issue is, is if you actually go on the CDC, I've gone through all the CDC slides that the advisory committee put forward on who is a frontline essential worker and who's an essential worker, health care professionals and first responders. Obviously, yes, they are so overworked, they are overtaxed. They should be getting the vaccine right alongside our elderly over 65. But if you start getting past them and the people who are listed as frontline essential workers, according to the CDC, you're talking about anybody who works in manufacturing, anybody who works at a grocery store, anybody who works at a, oh, gosh, what were some of the other ones in agriculture, in any sector. Basically, you're talking about, I don't know, half of all working people in frontline essential jobs. And then you go on to the essential workers, teachers and daycare workers, they're included in that as well. And then you go on to essential workers, people who work at banks, people who work in the media, basically almost everybody else who is in the workforce as essential workers. So this goes back to the thing that you originally said is that part of their decision making process was this kind of justice component and making decisions based on who gets the back, baking decisions about who gets to the work. And then they're going to be able to get the vaccine first, not based on who is most likely to die or get seriously ill, but instead based on occupation. I kind of understand why you would want the people that are forced to work to get vaccinated before people that are not forced to work. It's very difficult when you hear that you want essential workers to get vaccinated and they could still spread it. Because that needs to be really expressed very clearly. It's not being expressed clearly much at all. It is. Because, again, let's say you have that example. I mean, you know, people over 65, my parents included like you're you're pretty much stuck at home because of the very real danger that if you go out and you get infected, you could die. The danger of this fact about how the vaccines have not been scientifically established to prevent the transmission of the virus, that that's not being directly told to every single person who gets it, is a real problem because then they go home. Or they go and visit their parents who they haven't seen for a long time or their grandparents and could be carrying the virus and transmitting it unknowingly because they think like, I'm good now. I'm safe. And so that has to be part of this. I mean, to me, there's a direct scientific correlation based on facts that if you look at the people who are dying and who are being hospitalized, predominantly they are people over 65 years old. If we want to reduce those numbers, those are the people who should be prioritized to get this limited number of vaccines that we have first, then followed by younger, healthy people. I mean, it's to me, it's and by doing that, you know, really, we could reduce the numbers of of covid related death by about 80 percent, reduce the numbers of covid related hospitalizations by, I think it's like 48, 49 percent. That would have a massive, massive effect on people's lives and and on our country. Yeah, well said. And weird that that's not being said more often. Yeah, I've been I've been pushing. I've been pushing our both our state leadership in Hawaii and also also the Trump administration. So the Trump administration, just in the last few days, I think it was January 12th, I think the Department of Health and Human Services did actually adjust their recommendations. And they said vaccines need to urgently go towards people over 65. It is something that they have strongly recommended to the states. At this point, it's up to the states to choose whether to implement it or not. Texas has Texas is one of those states that has and there are a few others. But at this point, kind of the lives of our parents and grandparents are in the hands of the decisions being made by the governors and state health officials in each state. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience on Spotify. You can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan experience.