LETTER: Seniors in Nevada’s Tier 3 vaccination level makes no sense

Gov. Steve Sisolak has decided to use the race-based formula for the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. Senior citizens not living in nursing homes are placed in the Tier 3 group for vaccinations. Seniors are the group mostly dying from this disease, and yet they will be getting the vaccine after groups in Nevada from Tier 1 and 2.

This decision is partially based on initial recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to Dr. Kathleen Dooling, on the CDC advisory committee, “Racial and ethnic minority groups are under-reported among adults age 65 and older.” She further admitted that more lives would be saved by vaccinating those in the 65-years-and-over group, but implies that because those in this category are mostly white, they will not be given priority in getting the vaccine. This is not based on science but on some form of a system that doles out medicine based on race not need.

This is stupid policy, as many people who are not white are elderly, and they also will die from this disease. We seniors not living in nursing homes should be in Tier 1 along with the health care workers and public safety personnel, as we are the most vulnerable and the ones most likely to die from this disease.

But what galls me the most is that Gov. Sisolak has ranked us not even in Tier 2. We are behind teachers, transportation workers, essential retail workers, (whatever that means) and Nevada state inmates. Did you know the median age of a Nevada inmate is 36 years old? Members of that age group have a very high rate of survival if they get the COVID-19, and they don’t have to go out shopping for their food or worry about housing or going out to the hospital or their doctor and exposing themselves to the risk of contracting the disease. They are cared for by us taxpayers.

It makes me quite angry when our governor and his minions place an inmate who is living on Death Row in front of us to get the COVID-19 vaccination. This is an immoral and ignorant policy and does not follow the science.