VIA TONI AIRAKSINEN ON FACEBOOOK:

So, Uber yesterday implored the CDC to consider their drivers as “essential” and thus deserving of early COVID-19 vaccination, just as the CDC plans to provide vaccination to the elderly and healthcare workers first.

No doubt, Uber’s request is driven by profit motive.

Uniquely, Uber has a generous sick-leave policy. Drivers who test positive for COVID get up to 14 days of paid leave. And their compensation is based on an average of how much they’ve earned in the prior three months.

So, Uber nabbing early access for COVID vaccines for their drivers translates into fewer compensation claims, thus less costs for Uber. That’s assuming the vaccine works and won’t kill you, of course.

But let’s look at this a different way.

Due to our cultural impetus to honor first responders, we’ve placed workers on a flimsy public-health and moral hierarchy. Doctors are at the top (even if said doctor is working completely by telehealth), while our grocery store clerks, baristas, and delivery drivers are at the bottom.

Do they get the vaccine first too?

Our cultural zeitgeist — driven by media’s bias towards the educated upper-class — has forgotten about these workers. This is the forgotten front-line. Your bodega guy. Semi-truck drivers. Cooks. Waitresses. Sex workers. Moving crews. Warehouse stockers.

Will these people also be considered “essential?” This is no more of a public health concern than a moral issue of whose lives we consider valuable to society.

Or what about the “invisible workers” — home cleaners, hotel crew, nannies, and the sanitation workers who arrive to grab your trash and leave before dawn?

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

And I know what you’re going to say… “but the young don’t get sick, they don’t need the vaccine!” Well, that’s mostly true. But that retort completely overlooks the possibility that these younger workers might be more likely to silently spread the virus.

“But healthcare workers come into contact with the sick exponentially more often!” That’s also true.

It’ll be fascinating to see how vaccine distribution pans out.

Does a CNA who already has to wear 3x layers of PPE while working a three hour shift twice a week get the vaccine before a poultry-plant worker who is given only one mask a week in a windowless slaughterhouse?

For the record, I have mixed feeling about Uber drivers considered essential for this purpose. As a weekly user of Uber since I landed in NYC, drivers since March have always rolled down their windows to increase ventilation. They already have significant PPE.

Those such as cooks, sex workers or your bodega guy often don’t have adaquete PPE. It’s my hope that eventually society will realize that who is considered “essential” shouldn’t be contingent on their socioeconomic status, but their risk-factors for both contracting and spreading the virus.

Remember, at the start of the pandemic, free food and care packages were sent to nurses and doctors. But how many of us thought about our neighbors who grease the wheels (sometimes literally) of our society?

Well, plenty of us did, but not among the technocrats or the media.