Fast Pass

Kudos to the Times-Picayune/Advocate for polling its stable of "influencers" on the... well.. the kind of things the influencers might think about.  This question, for example, is just not something we'd expect the ordinary non-influential Joe or Jane might have to consider. 

We also asked a speculative question: If allowed, how much would respondents pay to be one of the first people vaccinated? More than half wouldn't bite.

More than half say no!  Well, 58% wouldn't go for it anyway.  Still, consider that a lot of that squeamishness likely has to do with just plain uncertainty about the rushed vaccine itself and it's kind of amusing that many of them said yes. 

Just this week the Governor laid out the state's plan to administer as many as 159,000 vaccinations by the end of the month. That number may be optimistic depending on how many doses become available and when.  The first batch of 39,000 injections could happen as early as this weekend.  But it will take many more months to get the vaccine out to everyone so we have had to prioritize health care workers. 

Between 200,000 and 215,000 people are estimated to be in the first priority group for the vaccines, according to state Health Department figures. That includes 75,000 to 80,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities and between 125,000 and 135,000 health workers.

The T-P Power Poll question doesn't only presuppose that the blessed elect should have the option of skipping this line. It goes straight on past that and asks them how much would they pay to have that privilege validated.  Turns out that's extremely valuable to some of them!

Byron LeBlanc, president of LeBlanc & Schuster Public Relations, said he'd consider it: "I'd probably be willing to pay more than $100 for the vaccine if it meant I could get a wrist band or something that would let me do away with the masks and resume normal behavior and travel."

What is this, Disney World? I just want to ride on the planes again.  Please let me buy a fast pass. Actually, going super-early would not allow you to "do away with masks and resume normal behavior."  Because vaccinations, much like masks and social distance precautions, are only effective when everyone has them.  Until that happens, early vaccine recipients who aren't being careful around others could be even more dangerous. 

Only people who have virus teeming in their nose and throat would be expected to transmit the virus, and the lack of symptoms in the immunized people who became infected suggests that the vaccine may have kept the virus levels in check.

But some studies have suggested that even people with no symptoms can have high amounts of coronavirus in their nose, noted Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, who represents the American Academy of Pediatrics at meetings of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The first person confirmed to be reinfected with the coronavirus, a 33-year-old man in Hong Kong, also did not have symptoms, but harbored enough virus to infect others.

Vaccinated people who have a high viral load but don’t have symptoms “would actually be, in some ways, even worse spreaders because they may be under a false sense of security,” Dr. Maldonado said.

As with so many human problems, no one is really safe from COVID until we all are safe from COVID.  Elites such as those identified by the Times-Picayune as "influencers" tend to think they can buy their way out of that social contract. A lot of the time this makes them suckers.  But mostly it just makes things difficult for the rest of us.