[BostonCard]

Good point,Tim. My guess is that minorities are higher in the pyramid for vaccinations because of their higher degree of comorbidities due to lack of good medical care, basic poverty, crowded living conditions, etc. GR, your disdain for these arguments is baffling.

If you read GR's post closely, he doesn't show disdain for those arguments, just for using race as a proxy for these factors.  He advocates for using whatever factors are associated with COVID-19 in a race neutral fashion, so that, if poverty is associated with death, then priority can be given to the poor, regardless of race.

One of the points I was trying to make is that there remains an association between race and COVID mortality even if you account for all of these things.  That doesn't mean that there is a biological effect of race on mortality, but rather that it is impossible to measure and account for all the factors that could be associated with mortality, a concept known as unmeasured confounder.

By the way, someone asked about genetics.  We do know that ABO blood group is associated with severe COVID, with patients with type A blood more at risk than those with type O blood.  As it turns out, African Americans are more likely to have type O blood than whites.  So, if anything, their ABO blood type should be a bit protective.

BC

[BostonCard]

Good point,Tim. My guess is that minorities are higher in the pyramid for vaccinations because of their higher degree of comorbidities due to lack of good medical care, basic poverty, crowded living conditions, etc. GR, your disdain for these arguments is baffling.

If you read GR's post closely, he doesn't show disdain for those arguments, just for using race as a proxy for these factors.  He advocates for using whatever factors are associated with COVID-19 in a race neutral fashion, so that, if poverty is associated with death, then priority can be given to the poor, regardless of race.

One of the points I was trying to make is that there remains an association between race and COVID mortality even if you account for all of these things.  That doesn't mean that there is a biological effect of race on mortality, but rather that it is impossible to measure and account for all the factors that could be associated with mortality, a concept known as unmeasured confounder.

By the way, someone asked about genetics.  We do know that ABO blood group is associated with severe COVID, with patients with type A blood more at risk than those with type O blood.  As it turns out, African Americans are more likely to have type O blood than whites.  So, if anything, their ABO blood type should be a bit protective.

BC