Suddenly, they’re starting to seem pretty damn essential.
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Flashback to the explicit priority scheme for prioritizing vaccine distribution…
Initially, scarce vaccine supplies were aimed at the elderly in long-term-care facilities (where the vast majority of covid deaths were accumulating) … and to covid-patient-facing healthcare professionals (especially those in direct contact with confirmed covid patients).
Made sense: Protect the most vulnerable and the most exposed.
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But, early on, clinically vulnerable old-timers (like me) were getting bumped by an expanding list of “essential employees”.
The vast majority of these government-coined “essentials” were under 60 with low consequential covid vulnerability.
And, save for the frontline healthcare workers, many of them were of questionable essentiality (e.g. virtual teachers who had made no near-term commitment to in person teaching).
See What do lawyers, prisoners, government bureaucrats and ‘the media” have in common?
The message to everybody else: You’re not essential (and maybe not that vulnerable) so don’t clog the system.
The message to, say, grocery store checkers and truck drivers: “You’re not essential … so shut-up and work.”
As the infamous Rev. Wright loved to say: “The chickens have come home to roost”.
Apparently, some people take it personally when you tell them they’re not essential.
Case in point: “Non-essential” truck drivers have emerged as very essential … and have not only found a voice but have collectivized determining political clout.
Gee, who could have possibly seen this coming?
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P.S. Suddenly, the flow of goods from Canada has become a very big deal. That is, unless the “goods” are oil flowing through an XL pipeline.
Your move, Joe.
The Homa Files 
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