Why an epidemiologist thinks Connecticut has its COVID vaccine priorities backwards

Excerpt:

But the state has its terms for success defined backward, said Saad Omer, Yale School of Public Health epidemiologist and the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. “That’s a process metric,” he said. “It’s not an outcome metric.”

How important is speed in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout? To Connecticut, it’s an important enough consideration to partially justify bucking CDC guidance on prioritizing people with co-morbidities, though experts suggest that it is the best way to prevent deaths in younger populations.

But by rolling out vaccine through an age-based process, the state will effectively de-prioritize younger adults with co-morbidities that put them at higher risk of dying from COVID-19, Omer said, because in those younger age groups, those with existing health issues will be part of a much larger crowd of eligible residents.

Author(s): Kasturi Pananjady

Publication Date: 9 March 2021

Publication Site: CT Mirror