Ivy League prof says workers should get vaccine before elderly because older people are 'whiter’

An Ivy League physician recently argued that “essential workers” should receive the COVID-19 vaccine ahead of elderly Americans because, he said, elderly people tend to be “whiter” and are thus not as immediately deserving of “additional health benefits.”

Harald Schmidt, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, made the argument in the New York Times earlier this month. The professor argued, according to the Times, that “it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given their risks, and that [workers] are disproportionately minorities.”

“Older populations are whiter, ” Schmidt told the paper. “Society is structured in a way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already had more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit.”

About two out of every five deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United States have been in nursing homes. COVID vaccine distribution began this week with frontline medical workers being among the first to receive them.