3 December 2020 — 1848 mst

Lawmakers, governors, and the president, should be
among the first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine

Initially, the Covid-19 vaccine will be in short supply. Therefore, the Centers for Disease Control recommends first vaccinating healthcare workers, especially physicians and nurses, and then nursing home and long term care facilities. I concur. These priorities are so obvious they should not be controversial.

Below the two top tiers, I suspect, will be people 65 and older, people with compromised immune systems, and somewhere in the mix, police officers, fire fighters, and other first responders. Again, not really controversial priorities.

After that, the “Me first!” shouting and shouldering begins. Indeed, there’s already a “My people first” clamor from unions representing, among others, slaughterhouse workers, and similar occupations. All can make good cases. Only increased production of the vaccines will resolve these conflicts.

Vaccinating politicians can protect us from them

Priority three, I believe, should go to the nation’s president and vice president; members of Congress; governors of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and overseas territories; members of state legislatures; mayors; and members of city and county councils.

Here’s why:

If the leader of an agency contracts Covid-19 and ends up on a ventilator in a medically induced coma, subordinates will run the agency. That’s the advantage of having a large, stable, civil service administering the policies set by political leaders.

But legislators cannot delegate members of their staffs to cast votes in their place. If they are knocked down by the coronavirus, if they become so desperately ill they no longer can do a legislator’s job, the voters are robbed of their representatives.

Worse, politicians who contract Covid-19 undoubtedly will infect others, including lobbyists, civil servants, friends and family, and constituents. Vaccinating politicians is one of the few ways we have of protecting ourselves from our blessings in elective office.

Montana’s 150-member legislature convenes in January. Let’s vaccinate our legislators and their staffs, and incoming governor Greg Gianforte and his staff, so they can stay on the job — all wearing N95 masks, of course, until public health authorities declare the pandemic is over and masks are no longer needed.

Should vaccination against Covid-19 be mandatory?

Yes, except for people with good medical reasons for not taking the vaccine (damn few actually will have good medical reasons), everyone should be vaccinated. That’s the best way of achieving herd immunity.

Mandatory vaccination may not be endorsed universally. Libertarians and religious zealots believe the safety of others must be subordinated to their “right” to behave in ways that endanger others. That phrasing puts a high philosophical gloss on what plain spoken people call selfishness. Others fear a vaccine’s adverse side effects — the second shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines reportedly make one feel like hell the next couple of days — more than they fear the disease against which the vaccine protects.

If the vaccines prove highly effective, if the overwhelming majority of the nation is vaccinated, we will be able, in time, to abandon our masks and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people again, and not be assaulted by Mr. Covid. That will take months, but it will happen if the anti-vaccination movement does not do Mr. Covid’s bidding.