Vermont Governor's BIPOC Covid Vaccine Policy Riles Up The Wackos

Some right wingers (and a few kooks) are mad that Vermont
Gov. Phil Scott has decided to do more to prioritize the
state's small BIPOC population for Covid vaccinations
becausetheir vaccination rates were falling behind.

 Vermont Gov Phil Scott, doing something that I thought was sensible, tweeted the following on Thursday: 

"If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine!"

Meanwhile, other people under the age of 50 need to wait a couple weeks before they can get themselves appointments for vaccines.

Scott did this because Vermont state health officials and many others noticed that the BIPOC community bore a disproportionate share of Covid cases, hospitalizations and death. This same group is lagging behind in vaccination rates.

The Vermont statistics say at all. As of Friday, about 39 percent of white Vermonters had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. That compares to 22 percent of Asian residents, 19 percent of black Vermonters, and a little under 9 percent among Native Americans. 

As Newsweek reports, Vermont's experience is in line with national trends that show Black, Hispanic and Native American people die of Covid-19 at almost three times the rate of white people.  

It seems Scott is making a stab at fairness. He's targeting the vaccine where it's needed most.  If you go after places where Covid has the strongest foothold, that protects everyone including us white boys and girls.  Plus, this idea helps minimize the strain on state resources.

But that doesn't work for white snowflakes. God forbid anybody in the BIPOC category gets some sort of benefit before white people do. 

Cue the backlash.

Newsweek has examples:

The loathsome Matt Walsh, who I highlighted in another post recently, said the move is "wildly unacceptable and absurdly unethical."

Chris Rufo of the Discovery Institute got on Fox News to say, "Vermont's program of racially separated standards, which denies medical services to a specific racial group, is a flagrant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. "

There's plenty of other examples on Twitter. You can tell Scott is doing the right thing because none other that Marjorie Taylor Greene weighed in on Twitter. "This is blatantly racist," Greene thundered.

Hmmm. Wonder what she thinks of the new voter suppression laws in Georgia that are explicitly designed to discourage Blacks from voting.

Some idiot named Derek Hunter on Twitter lamented Scott's move is a typical move by a Democrat. Ooops! Too bad Scott is a Republican. But then again, he's no fan of Donald Trump, so I guess our Gov is effectively kicked out of that club.

As you can see, their white supremacy is showing.  The real problem here is the revulsion amid some in the right wing that the BIPOC population in Vermont is being treated in any way other than contempt. They're being treated like human beings, gawd forbid.

Let's all take a deep breath here. 

As Jessica Frisco writes in Business Insider:

"Stripped of all the racial commentary, all Vermont has done is allow a small, at-risk population to get vaccinated a few weeks ahead of other healthy, younger people. In Vermont, where 90 percent of Covid-19 deaths have been people over 65, and 87.8 percent of that population is now vaccinated, it's not as though truly vulnerable populations have been sidelined to allow minorities access to vaccinations. 

Really, it's just good public health policy in action."