Figuring out how to combine science with fairness in COVID-19 vaccine distribution is a tricky puzzle. Science can help predict how to distribute limited doses to minimize overall deaths, but that means acting fast, which might compromise fairness. That’s how we end up with outrage when hospital administrators get shots ahead of nursing home residents, or, as The Atlantic reports, offspring ahead of their elderly parents.
Perfection is impossible. But there’s a way to do justice to both science and ethics: Focus vaccines on geographic hot spots and the elderly. Experts say both are important — and getting the vaccines to the hard-hit areas could correct racial disparities that are already appearing in the early rollout.
Focusing on geographic hot spots can help minimize spread of the disease, which will also minimize the risk of new vaccine-evading variants cropping up. The more people get infected, the greater the number of viral particles out there, and the greater number of mutant versions will arise. And that means the greater the odds a dangerous variant will spread.