Authorities in many areas are planning on distributing the Covid vaccine to those most at risk first. I agree that health care workers and other front line workers like grocery store personnel should receive the vaccine first. I do not think that the vaccine should be distributed to the elderly in nursing homes first though.
Studies have clearly shown that the death rate is much higher for the elderly than for the young, so why do I think the elderly should not receive priority vaccinations?
People in nursing homes generally have already lived full lives. Even if they received a vaccine, they have no hope for life to improve… age is decaying their bodies at a very rapid rate. They are not producing anything for society, nor will they ever be productive again. People go to nursing homes to wait to die.
The vaccine should first be prioritized for people with as much productive future years as we can target. This should be weighted against the death rate for their age group. So using the vaccines on babies is probably not necessary since although they have the longest lives, they also are most likely to resist the disease naturally. People in their 40’s though are susceptible to the disease and it can kill them or injure them permanently so they can no longer be productive members of society. My guess is we should start with people in their 40’s, then do people in their 50’s, then go back to people in their 30’s , and then finally proceed through those in their 60’s then 70’s and so on.