Frontline health care workers were first up to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and second in line will be staff and residents of long-term care facilities in the state of Michigan.
Residents of long-term care facilities make up approximately one-third of COVID-19 deaths in the state, according to Bridge Michigan. Local hospitals are facing a difficult decision on who is next to be prioritized for the vaccine.
“These are incredibly difficult decisions,” said Jeffrey Byrnes, a Grand Valley State University philosophy professor and medical ethicist, according to Bridge Michigan. “This is a real high-wire act. This is the kind of thing that 10, 20 years ago would have been drafted as a hypothetical and perhaps overly dramatic textbook problem. Now we are facing this in real-time.”
Michigan state guidelines are recommending that others in the health care field -- such as dentists, pharmacists, outpatient urgent care, and home health care workers -- should be next in line to receive the vaccine. Then after that comes more potential choices such as teachers, those working at homeless shelters, school and daycare staff, food supply employees, utility workers and transportation employees.
“Right now, they are asking, ‘Where am I in all of this?’ That’s turned into quite a behind-the-scenes tussle,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, according to Bridge Michigan.
The state hopes that vaccines will be available to some of the above listed people by early 2021. Residents with underlying health conditions will be prioritized over anyone who is 16 years or older.
In Michigan state prisons, over 20,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed out of an estimated 35,000 prisoners in the state, according to Bridge Michigan. Over 100 inmates have died from COVID-19. Prisoners are not on the priority list, but the American Medical Association disagrees, with one AMA board member arguing that prisoners should not be left vulnerable to COVID-19.
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