The state will rely on the honor system for coronavirus protection, with no evidence required that anyone meets the new underlying conditions requirements.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Julyn Shepherd fills syringes for Utah County residents to get their COVID-19 vaccinations at a former Shopko store in Spanish Fork, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021.
Instead, the state relies on the honor system. It is an attempt to get shot in the arms as soon as possible, but it will almost certainly result in assault, as people find that there are relatively few obstacles that prevent them from jumping forward in line.
“It’s possible that people are lying about whether or not they have any of these underlying health problems,” Gov. Spencer Cox acknowledged at a news conference Thursday, pleading with Utahns to abide by the rules.
Requiring paperwork as proof of eligibility would not only “significantly slow down the process of getting vaccines into these people’s arms,” Hudachko said, but it would also place an “unnecessary burden on health workers who would be responsible for providing such documentation. “
This shift to wider access to vaccines comes as Utah’s coronavirus death toll approaches 2,000. But the seven-day average for the number of positive coronavirus tests has fallen, both under the state’s traditional measure – which was still above 10% last week – and under its new methodology, which hovered around 6% last week. The number of Utahns fully vaccinated with two doses was 225,000 midweek, with that total likely to exceed 250,000 over the weekend.
What is happening elsewhere?
As states begin to qualify larger populations of residents for vaccinations, they have taken different approaches as to whether they need paperwork to vaccinate people in a priority group.
It remains to be seen how well the honor system will be implemented here, but Margaret Battin, a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, said she wondered if the influence of the community of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could affect the success of the policy.
“The teachings of the church … I think the queuing behavior could be discouraged,” said Battin, who is also an adjunct professor. in the Medical Ethics and Humanities program of the U. within the Department of Internal Medicine. “All that ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘choosing the right’, moral teachings like that could play a role in the behavior of many people in this state, which may not be true in a more heterogeneous state like New York. . “
Hudachko said the decision was mainly based on feedback from vaccine and healthcare providers that requiring paperwork would create “significant bottlenecks”. He said he was unable to compare which approach is more effective and noted that several states have not yet begun to vaccinate people with underlying health conditions.
Who will receive the following vaccine?
Utahns ages 16 and older with certain serious and chronic health conditions are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s a list of those qualifying health conditions, according to the Utah Department of Health:
• Recipients of solid organ transplants.
Certain cancers.
• People who are immunocompromised (a weakened immune system) from blood, bone marrow, or organ transplants; HIV; long-term use of corticosteroids or long-term use of other immune-weakening medicines.
• Severe kidney disease or dialysis, or with stage 4 or 5 chronic kidney disease.
• Uncontrolled diabetes.
• Severe obesity (body mass index over 40).
Chronic liver disease, including chronic hepatitis B or C.
• Chronic heart disease (excluding hypertension).
• Severe chronic respiratory disease (other than asthma).
• Neurological conditions that interfere with respiratory function, including Down’s syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy, quadriplegia or hemiplegia.
• Stroke and dementia (Alzheimer’s disease, vascular, frontotemporal).
Asplenia, including splenectomy or spleen disorder, including sickle cell disease.
Although the honor system poses its own problems, Jim Tabery, associate professor of philosophy at the U., said he thinks the planned vaccine rollout is the “ethically right path.”
“Obviously when you think of something like that, your mind naturally goes to the sort of the vaccine jumpers or the freeloaders,” he said. “Maybe there are some of those, but the question is, what system do you envision creating them? And would it actually be a better system? “
Requiring people to jump through hoops to prove they have an underlying health condition could be “terribly invasive” for people with disabilities, he said, and could also pose equality issues in gaining access to the vaccine. For example, individuals within severely affected communities of color may not have access to a health care provider to obtain evidence of their condition or may struggle to find work to get an appointment.
‘When you’re dealing with someone [in that situation] who has diabetes and you say, ‘To get the vaccine, we also need some kind of confirmation that you have diabetes,’ you’re essentially asking them to visit a healthcare provider that they don’t have access to, ‘ he said. “And so probably what you’re doing is guaranteeing that someone doesn’t get access to a vaccine.”
Until now, it has been “relatively easy” for vaccine providers to determine eligibility in Utah, Hudachko noted.
Still, Nicholas Rupp, spokesman for the Salt Lake County health department, said there have been a few instances where people have tried to “cheat the system” and have been turned away from a vaccination site.
Fortunately, it is not a widespread problem, he said. “We’ve had more people who really misunderstood whether they were eligible, but even those aren’t widespread.”
The county has not taken a stance on the use of an honor system, but Rupp said the health department will follow directions from the state and the governor “ and encourage people to be fair so that the vaccine goes first to those who really have the greatest at risk of getting serious. disease.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) A socially distant waiting area for Utah County residents to get their COVID-19 vaccinations at a former Shopko store in Spanish Fork, Wednesday January 27, 2021.
By announcing Thursday that the vaccines will be immediately open to people with underlying conditions, in lieu of the previously scheduled March 1 date, Cox noted that those now eligible are at greatest risk of hospitalization and death from COVID. 19.
And he urged Utahns, who do not qualify, not to schedule appointments.
“There are so many more vaccines coming and they are coming, but we are prioritizing these individuals – again based on age and these underlying co-morbidities – because they are most at risk of hospitalization or death,” he said. “So if you jump ahead, it means that there is someone else who is not getting the vaccine as soon as possible and it is very possible they will end up in the hospital, or worse, die.”
Those who follow the rules “can sleep well at night knowing that you didn’t cheat the system, that you were willing to give it to those who needed it most,” he added.
While the state is opening up vaccines to more people, Tabery said those who don’t qualify for them yet are the most ethical to wait their turn.
There are legitimate questions about fairness in vaccine rollout, he noted. But if, for example, a grocery store employee felt he or she should have been involved in the latest round of inoculations, the way to deal with that is to contact state leaders to voice that concern – not that someone takes matters into their own hands.
“ If someone gets into a situation where they happen to be in the hospital or pharmacy and the pharmacist or nurse says, ‘Hey, we’ve got an extra dose. This is lost if you don’t use it, “then it would be wrong not to take that,” he said.
It is likely that many people will make these ethical calculations during this phase of the state rollout, but Battin indicated that social stigma and disapproval of people crossing the line will be the primary defense against that behavior.
Tabery said he expects there will be times when people will cut the vaccination line and those cases, when identified, will make the news.
But he is confident that most Utahns will abide by these rules.
“I really think the state of Utah has some kind of underlying common mindset that serves him well in situations like this,” he said. And so I’m sure there will be line cutters. I’m sorry they found themselves in a situation where they felt they should or could do that. But I think they will definitely become the exception – not the rule. “