Guest essay by Eric Worrall
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has demanded white people go to the back of the queue when a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available.
Sadiq Khan Demands Minorities Get Preferential Access to Coronavirus Vaccines
KURT ZINDULKA 19 Nov 2020
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has demanded that black people and other ethnic minorities receive priority access to the Chinese coronavirus vaccine.
The leftist Mayor claimed that so-called BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) groups are disproportionally affected by the virus, and therefore should be placed at the top of the list when the vaccine is distributed.
Speaking to BBC Radio on Monday evening, Mr Khan said: “The NHS and Public Health England are working up criteria for who gets the vaccine first. Basically speaking, it’s done by age.
“But I have asked for additional things to be factored in, and that includes concerns I have got around black, Asian, ethnic minority Londoners who disproportionately suffered during the main deaths we saw in March, April, May and June.”
…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/19/london-mayor-khan-demands-minorities-get-preferential-access-to-coronavirus-vaccines/
Imagine the public outcry if someone had called for black or Asian people to be the targets of such discrimination?
Back in April the UK NHS issued an advisory for health managers consider withdrawing non white people from frontline treatment of Covid, because of concerns about a high number of deaths amongst non-white health workers, but plenty of white people also died.
Despite this, I have not seen any convincing evidence this apparent disparity in death rates is because white people are inherantly more resistant to Covid-19.
A more likely explanation for any difference in susceptibility is dark skinned people who live at high latitudes are more likely to suffer vitamin-D deficiency. Vitamin-D is well known for boosting resistance to respiratory infections. Adequate levels of vitamin-D might boost resistance to Covid-19.
How not to improve race relations – positive discrimination. I can see his logic but it is an ill-thought-out proposal and would do far more harm than good. One further word about BLM in this vein and half the UK population left, right-wing or centre would go off pop.
Affirmative discrimination.
I’d quite happily sit near the back of the queue, by the time it’s my turn, I will have a good idea as to whether it is actually safe.
If it isn’t they’ll have withdrawn it before it’s my turn!
If ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by COVID, then why are there not many millions dropping dead in Africa and Asia?
There is more sunlight and vitamine D production than in the North / GB
I have learned some things in my life. First, it is okay to racist, so long as you are not a white person. Second, it is okay to be sexist, so long as you are not a man. Third, it okay for a man to be a woman and a woman to be a man, but what is unacceptable is for a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman.
It must be very confusing for children growing up in this current world. They need good parents to help them try to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately, not all kids have good parents.
Children today are faced with Society’s “Voice of Authority” the Lying Leftwing News Media, who are creating a horribly scary false reality that can only be solved by turning to Socialism, they tell us.
I guess the remedy for all this is to keep pointing out the truth. Leftwing lies can’t stand up to scrutiny. All the Leftists have in their favor is volume, not facts.
Hang in there, kids! The Sane people of the world are still fighting for you.
I demand that blue-eyed people be first in line. Blue-eyed lives matter!
According to Wikipedia:
“As of November 2020, Moderna was valued at $35 billion, and while none of its drugs had been approved, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate was close to obtaining emergency use authorization. ….”
That one is not for me then.
My ancestors spent centuries fighting the Turks and then two WW the Germens, so I’ll give pass the Pfizer’s vaccine too.
Will wait for the toffs’ vaccine from Oxford if they’ll have me.
/sarc
UNBELIEVABLE!….The answer is simple…S-E-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N. Sadiq belongs in Arabia….Lawrence of Arabia never belonged there except for some war effort….Middle East is for Middle Easterners….Asia….for Asians….Africa for Africans….etc. etc. etc. Diversity is not strength – it is disaster.
He is from Pakistan
Ahhh, DISTINCTION WITHOUT MUCH DIFFERENCE….I WILL GIVE HIM A FREE ONE WAY TICKET BACK. He can help make Pakistan great again, no? Pakistan is for Pakkis, no?
So underlying health conditions don’t matter? Make him the next chief at WHO.
Nothing to see here. If being in some demographic means you’re at higher risk, then you should be given a higher priority for vaccine.
Framing…. presentation matter. His statement could be made without reference to diversity.
“Framing”
Yes. He could have said we need to vaccinate the most vulnerable in our society first, and left it at that. But, being a low-life, bomb-throwing leftist, he had to inject race into the mix.
So they admit some people are biologically more at risk?
And it isn’t syssstemic raccccism?
Vitamin D is cheap, so is shoe polish.
as in
https://youtu.be/sfjzKYXzsjA
I’m no fan at all of Sadiq Khan, but seems to me that in this case he is right: it is entirely proper that those most likely to suffer severe disease and death should be high up in the priority list for vaccines as they become available. I’m surprised that anybody on the right should seriously question that.
[What I suspect, however, is that Mr Khan promotes this course of action for the wrong reasons, which are definitely racist in themselves. If he was consistent in his opposition to racist action, he should railing against his own proposal. Most anti-racists are themselves the most racist folk around – but they think that their racism should not be called that, because it is racism directed against those that they feel are in a ‘privileged’ group. Labels, always labels!]
That’s another matter. What amazes me is the assumption in the media – and widely elsewhere – that black susceptibility to the virus is entirely due to their relatively disadvantaged living and economic conditions. I would be very surprised if there wasn’t a significant genetic component to that susceptibility. It seems likely, especially since we note the huge excess mortality amongst males, relative to females, that genetics plays a large part. We should be trying very hard indeed to get to the bottom of any genetic component, outwardly tagged most usefully by gender and racial characteristics, because that knowledge is going to help us in so many ways, and not just in dealing with this particular virus. But it seems that, as with so much in this ‘woke’ age, genetic differences must be downplayed, or, preferably, never spoken about at all. That’s a tragedy.
Assigning the vaccine first to those most at risk is good policy. However using very broad categories such as “people of color” (POC) is not the way to do it. An older white person with several comorbidity factors obviously should get the vaccine before young healthy POCs.
The logic is parallel to one argument against higher minimum wages to help the disadvantaged. A young person living at home gets an unnecessary benefit from the higher wages, relative to a single mother with several children and paying rent. Not to mention that the reduced demand for labor makes it more difficult for the young person to develop a work history that could lead to better paying jobs.
The best argument against the minimum wage is that it doesn’t work and it ends up hurting those you claim to want to help.
The only people who have ever been helped by higher minimum wages has been the people who make products that replace human labor.
You think being white or not white is what makes a person “high risk”?
I can tell you, this is clearly very wrong.
There is a stronger correlation in most places with gender.
Age is of course the larger risk factor, by far.
And next comes any one or more of several specific health conditions.
Occupation fits in there somewhere in a prominent spot.
Pick a place at random, then go the health department page for that place.
Then separately look up the demographic composition of that place.
Everywhere I have looked, there is no particular trend in covid deaths that varies strongly from the demographics of the whole population.
From the ONO (Office for National Statistics) UK:
Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by ethnic group, England and Wales:
1. This provisional analysis has shown that the risk of death involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) among some ethnic groups is significantly higher than that of those of White ethnicity.
2 . When taking into account age in the analysis, Black males are 4.2 times more likely to die from a COVID-19-related death and Black females are 4.3 times more likely than White ethnicity males and females.
3. People of Bangladeshi and Pakistani, Indian, and Mixed ethnicities also had statistically significant raised risk of death involving COVID-19 compared with those of White ethnicity.
4. After taking account of age and other socio-demographic characteristics and measures of self-reported health and disability at the 2011 Census, the risk of a COVID-19-related death for males and females of Black ethnicity reduced to 1.9 times more likely than those of White ethnicity.
5. Similarly, males in the Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic group were 1.8 times more likely to have a COVID-19-related death than White males when age and other socio-demographic characteristics and measures of self-reported health and disability were taken into account; for females, the figure was 1.6 times more likely.
6. These results show that the difference between ethnic groups in COVID-19 mortality is partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwales/2march2020to10april2020
Simple. Its because a larger portion are in low wage public facing jobs or live in shared houses. Sometimes its a religious thing and attend more often and in larger numbers.
You need to compare the death/ test positive ratio. Just as there is higher deaths in care homes because of age and prexisting conditions on top of the ‘shared living’ situation
I have not check in countries other than the US, so I should have qualified my comment as being specific to US states.
I have gone to one state site after another, and checked the stats of percent of deaths that were people of various racial groups.
Then looked at separate stats for the census reported racial demographics of that state.
Time after time I see small differences, with the uncertainties far eclipsing any possible statistical significance of the racial breakdown.
For example, the state of Oklahoma reports that 6% of the deaths in that state have been among African Americans.
But there are something like 10% African Americans in Oklahoma.
And then the number of deaths in which race was not listed, was large, close to 20% of the total.
Last Spring there were some news stories to the effect that the deaths in Michigan were overwhelmingly African American, but without even looking up stats on the actual percentages and the actual demographics of the state, it became obvious that most of the deaths were in a couple of large cities…cities that have a large proportion of American Americans relative to the entire US.
If it was true that being black made one more likely to die from the virus, it should not matter where one looked. It should not be location specific, but across the board, in all locations.
And adjusting for age does not suffice to correct for confounders in any case.
In some places, certain minority populations are far more likely to be morbidly obese, to have uncontrolled high blood pressure, and to be diabetic, just to name a few conditions known to be correlated with worse outcomes.
I am not trying to make the case that the opposite of the assertion is true, that blacks are more likely to die.
I am simply pointing out that there are a large number of places where it is specifically not true.
I am not going to post links unless someone wants to see them.
Anyone can look up statistics for themselves.
One location and one report proves little of nothing.
What is really does, IMO, is give a reason to look at the question more closely.
One thing is for sure, when one wants to be convinced of something, it is easy to find something that will back up a particular narrative or point of view.
Mr McGinley: “One thing is for sure, when one wants to be convinced of something, it is easy to find something that will back up a particular narrative or point of view.”
Well yes exactly, and so it has always been. I posted the UK stats just as a reference, not as an undeniable truth, nevertheless this is where people like Khan get their statistics they need to hang their divisive political ideas on.
The BHF (British Heart Foundation) has this to say:
“If you’re South Asian, African, or African Caribbean in the UK, your risk of developing some heart and circulatory diseases can be higher than white Europeans.”
….and this from Diabetes UK :
“People of Black African origin are up to three times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than people of White European origin.”
Yes, those last two items are exactly the sorts of things I was referring to.
No. The problem is that color is not a risk factor. There are risk factors which are higher among blacks and Asians. They are heart problems and diabetes. Control for these and they are no more at risk than whites. A black or Asian person is at exactly the same risk as a white person with the same heart and diabetes condition.
If you simply vaccinate first those with heart problems and diabetes, and the oldest first, you will in fact vaccinate black and Asian people in larger numbers than whites, earlier.
But this is not because you are giving priority to black and Asian people. Its because you are giving priority to those most at risk.
The problem with identity politics of this sort is that they fail to address the real problem by assuming that this strange mythical concept called ‘race’ is the driving variable in all policy matters. Its a sort of obsession, and its completely factually mistaken.
In fact, there is no reason to think that black and Asian people are more at risk because of their ethnicity than whites.
People with co-morbidities are the ones at risk. Whether they are black, white, yellow, whatever.
“I’m no fan at all of Sadiq Khan, but seems to me that in this case he is right: it is entirely proper that those most likely to suffer severe disease and death should be high up in the priority list for vaccines as they become available. I’m surprised that anybody on the right should seriously question that.
[What I suspect, however, is that Mr Khan promotes this course of action for the wrong reasons, which are definitely racist in themselves.”
You just answered your own question.
Those of us on the right are questioning Khan’s injection of race into the conversation when it was not called for. Those on the right would agree that the most vulnerable among us should get the vaccine first. We can use science to tell us who that would be. What we don’t need are Mr. Khan’s race-baiting remarks insinuating that People of Color are being discriminated against.
It seeems to me that what is being said here is that there should be NO prioritisation of vaccines, Bame do not chose to be BAME at birth in the same way as type1 diabetics do not chose to be diabetics, or others with co-morbities chose to have co-morbidities (unless obese – inc me!). You seem to suggest that if BAME die more frequently they do not deserve priority access and consequently no one should have priority (except perhaps frontline workers?).
This to me seems to be your stance. Am I wrong?
when are you ever right about anything? never. Go back to the top of the page and read, slowly, and for comprehension (I know, you always have problems with that last part) only once you’ve done that will you be able to comprehend how stupid your mischaracterization of what was said in this article and in the comments is. fail to do that (which you clearly have so far) and no one will every be able to explain it to what passes for a brain in that empty head of yours because clearly you only see and understand what you want to rather than what is.
The report says
“London Mayor Sadiq Khan has demanded that black people and other ethnic minorities receive priority access to the Chinese coronavirus vaccine .
The leftist Mayor claimed that so-called BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) groups are disproportionally affected by the virus, and therefore should be placed at the top of the list when the vaccine is distributed.”
These statements are just simply lies.
Kahn said:
“I have asked for additional things to be factored in, and that includes concerns I have got around black, Asian, ethnic minority”
and
“According to PHE data, black women were more than twice as likely as white women to contract covid – with black men almost three times as likely as white men.”
There is no demand just a suggestion that BAME humans need to be considered at more risk than Caucasian The second quote shows increased risk.
No. A black or Asian person with diabetes is at exactly the same risk as a white person with it. Or if they don’t have diabetes, they are at exactly the same risk as a white person who does not.
The driving variable is not color. The driving variable is heart problems, diabetes, obesity, age. If you are black or white, makes no difference.
There is zero point giving priority to young healthy black women. They are not at risk. Any more than young healthy white women are.
The result of giving priority based on color will simply be that you immunize lots of people not at risk, and miss lots who are.
I have not head from anyone who thinks that there should be no prioritization of who gets vaccinated first.
There seems to be a general view that those who are at the most risk should be vaccinated first.
Although I have seen where at least one so-called expert has called for rejecting the notion of vaccinating people at high risk, first. That would be Zeke Emanuel.
Although it may not matter much, at least here in the US.
There are two vaccines that have very good efficacy rates, close to 95% or perhaps even a little better, for which a large number of doses have been being premanufactured.
Between these two alone, I believe the number of doses that will be ready by the end of the year is 100 million plus 20 million.
And since there seems to be a number of people hesitant to get vaccinated with something so new that was rushed through the process of inventing and testing and presumably approval as well, there may be plenty for everyone who clamors to be inoculated. Especially since there are three more in late stage testing that may also prove to be effective, and each of them will have a large number of doses available.
And those 120 million will be quickly followed by many millions more being cranked out…for one of them, they are saying they can easily make a billion doses by the end of 2021.
If we get lucky and have all five of the ones in late testing turn out to work just fine, there may be enough for everyone in the US to be dosed almost immediately. Everyone who is willing to take it anyway.
Personally, I had signed up to be a volunteer for three different clinical trials, but never got a call back from any of them.
I would have been willing to be the very first person dosed with the stuff.
Be sure and copy without license the AstraZeneca vaccine.
lets see.
fibromyalgia. yup thats a known problem.
restrictive lung disease (we believe still testing) for sure a known issues.
heart beat issues (still testing for cause) for sure another known issue.
nerve damage making it hard to do productive coughs and sneezes. yup thats an issue too.
I got more known covid issues those are just the 4 big ones.
white male 52 yrs old.
prob not going to get it until I see some long term results.
The vaccines have failed their trials! Simply measure the vaccine trials against results demanded of the Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Hydroxychloroquine trials. The PrEP vaccines have failed to prevent infection, but have apparently reduced severity of disease. This is directly comparable to results of multiple trials of PrEP HCQ . https://c19study.com/#prep
Alternatively, the novel vaccines do have beneficial effect, but so does the low dose, very safe, well understood HCQ prophylaxis.
Racism comes in all forms. It is so sad to see it supported by so many “people of color”. By the way…I guess “white” is not a color?
How about we provide vaccine to those in healthcare most at risk, then use a risk based strategy for all people without regard to the color of their skin? Or is that too fair for this racist person?
Affirmative discrimination. Diversity (i.e. color judgment), not limited to racism. The featured symbol of discrimination and exclusion is the Rainbow, which features the exclusion of black, brown, and takes pride in the shredded remains of white. It’s a Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, relativistic quasi-religious (e.g. “ethical”) thing.
The best of the political regimes isn’t worth more than the value of the men who serve it.
(A. de Tocqueville )
What the London mayor actually means is that he should be first in the queue.
I’m perfectly happy to have non-whites test the first mRNA vaccine. One developed and tested under expedited conditions.
BINGO! It’s being rushed here too in Aus…I sure as h3ll won’t be having it.
I love the disproportionate affected aguments. Its plays to victimhood and never look at any aspects of personal or community behaviour. When over represented in prison its never a behaviour problem its always a policing problem, same with the virus. I wonder how in his addled mind he thinks poor white people have any less exposure? Victim card writ large and Khan showing his true racist colours.
This guy has destroyed London, and wants the rest of the nation to bail him out.
I’m an American so not that familiar with British or London politics.
I’ll assume that non-whites have been more effected than whites.
Has he ever explained why?
He’s the Mayor. Did he load his staff with members of a certain American group famous for wearing white hoods?
Did they exempt non-whites from following whatever Cocid-19 restrictions the UK and London put in place in hopes non-whites whould get it?
If not, he is a racist. Period.
Can a London business owner refuse entry to BAME customer on OH&S grounds because they are a higher safety risk to employees?
Or even make them wear mask or sit in a special corner?
Probably, but then they would be imposing on their human rights.
UK expert: Racism not to blame for minorities’ COVID risk
LONDON (AP) — A scientist newly appointed as an advisor to the British government has expressed skepticism about focusing on the role of structural racism in the disproportionate effect that the coronavirus has on ethnic minority groups.
“Instead of focusing on ethnicity we need to look at the key underlying risk factors (which are mainly socioeconomic) that are causing their higher death rates — and that will therefore reduce the risk of death in all ethnic groups, including whites,” Dr. Raghib Ali, an epidemiologist at Cambridge University, wrote in the Times.
. . .
But Ali, who’s been appointed the government’s new advisor on COVID-19 and ethnicity, said evidence has since emerged showing that most of the increased risk can be accounted for by factors other than race. Black and Asian people are more likely to live in deprivation, in densely populated urban centers and in multi-generational homes, he said. They are also more likely to suffer from conditions such as obesity and diabetes.”
read more: https://tinyurl.com/yyxc86xt
The more people you come in contact with, the greater your chance of catching the virus. Death is more certain for elderly and ill people. So it would make sense to prioritize the vaccine first to health care workers, second to the elderly and ill people, and third to those who must come in contact with many people because of their work or living conditions. I suspect that Black and Asian people contract the virus more because of Vit. D, but also because they are a greater percentage of the working class that come into contact frequently with the public. If you just focus on working people in contact with the public, you’ll probably automatically take care of the Black and Asian folks that are most vulnerable.
If you just focus on individuals at risk, those with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, older, in the health services, then you will end up vaccinating more minorities because they are more likely to be one or more of these.
But you will avoid the total waste that targeting individuals by color of skin would lead to. That is a totally idiotic and unscientific idea, all it would do is prioritize lots of people not at risk while neglecting those that are.
A black man with diabetes is at greater risk than any non-diabetic of any color, and is at the same risk as a similar white man with diabetes. Its the diabetics you want to focus on, never mind what color they are.
This idiotic liberal desire to make skin color be the driving force of every policy is real old fashioned dyed in the wool racialism.
It are the progressives who produce the real hate speech.
spot on michel. And it’s a racism that is abetted by a surface level look at the data. BAME individuals, statistically may appear to be more affected, but when you drill down into the data, it’s not their skin color that’s the predominate cause. The predominate cause tends to be socio-economic in nature.
Whites tend to populate more rural areas (where everything is socially distanced by default) whereas minorities then to populate crowded urban areas (where there is little social distancing by default). Whites tend to have middle to upper class professions (and more likely to have jobs that lend themselves to working remotely and/or lack much contact with the general public on a daily basis) whereas minorities tend to have lower class professions (service sector and manual labor jobs that that can’t be done remotely and that put them in greater contact with the general public on a daily basis).
The fact is a rural white person of the same socio-economic level as a rural BAME person are pretty much equal in risk level (IE within the margin of error). Same for an urban white of the same socio-economic level as an urban BAME person.