Add this Republican to the list of governors proven to lack the qualities of leadership needed to steer their states through these trying times.
Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, has issued a statement responding to critics — including yours truly — of his state’s use of racial preferences in determining who is eligible for the life-saving coronavirus vaccines. Its title? “Statement by Governor Phil Scott About Racist Response to Efforts to Vaccinate Vermont’s BIPOC Population.”
Lies and obfuscation from the start, then.
In the body of the statement, Scott explains his reasoning for making the vaccine available only to people of certain skin colors in younger age groups:
Vermont’s data currently shows the Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) population is at increased risk of hospitalization from COVID-19. This is a population of our neighbors already facing health equity disadvantages as a result of historical inequities and injustices.
In addition to the greater risk of hospitalization among BIPOC community members, the pace of vaccination for these individuals is too far behind the white population. With a rate of 20.2% of the BIPOC population having received at least one dose of vaccine as compared with non-Hispanic Whites (33.4%), we need to do more to close this gap – both as a matter of equity and to help decrease the risk of hospitalizations.
These disparities are unacceptable to me. To address this, in coordination with the state’s health experts, I opened up vaccine registration to all members of the Vermont BIPOC community 16 years of age and older – as well as members of their household.
Obviously, racial disparities in hospitalization and vaccination rates are issues of importance. Scott’s solution would suggest that he believes it to be chiefly a problem of supply/opportunity, not demand. That very well might be the case, but he presents no evidence of that being the driver behind these regrettable disparities. Besides, even if Scott is right about causes, there are surely better remedies (why not simply open up more vaccination sites in communities with a higher proportion of minority residents?) than government-imposed racial restrictions on vaccine access.
Worse than his unconvincing defense is his disgusting smear of critics of his administration’s dangerous lurch toward racialist policy-making:
Unfortunately, the legacy of racism in America, and in Vermont, still drives a lot of anger and fear. Recently, my office, the Health Department and those hardworking individuals getting us vaccinated, have been subjected to vitriolic and inappropriate comments in social media and other forums regarding this decision.
This too is unacceptable. And it is evidence that many Americans, and many Vermonters, still have a lot to learn about the impacts of racism in our country and how it has influenced public policy over the years.
We understand that these are stressful, uncertain times and people have different ways of dealing with that stress.
Is it really unacceptable for a powerful public figure to come under fire for instituting an unconstitutional, racially discriminatory public-health policy during a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans of all skin colors? I’m sure there has been some racist heckling of the governor on social media since he announced this unjust and ill-thought out initiative. But the implication that his critics writ large are motivated by prejudice, anger, fear, or stress is a deceptive and insulting one. Scott is knocking over a straw-man, not refuting the very real long- and short-term consequences of mandatory racial preferences in medicine.
Governor Scott goes on to insist that:
Words matter. I encourage everyone to consider the meaning of their words from another person’s point of view, as well as the consequences of how our own words can impact the wellbeing of others.
Indeed. Words do matter, in particular when they come from people entrusted with the power of the state. Scott’s smear of his critics unmasks him as being as irresponsible with his words as Donald Trump (if more silver-tongued), and as thin-skinned as Elizabeth Warren.
Add this Republican to the list of governors proven to lack the qualities of leadership needed to steer their states through these trying times.