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Local newspaper columnist Jim Kenyon writes columns that examine inequities in our region and in our culture in general, Today’s column critiques the methods states are using to allocate the currently scarce vaccines and questions Vermont’s hard-and-fast distribution based on age, a procedure referred to as “age-banding”. Instead of using age as the sole if not primary basis for the distribution of vaccines Mr. Kenyon thinks that lower wage front line workers should be considered for vaccines before, say, healthy 55 year olds who work remotely and have food delivered to their homes. In his column he leans on Dartmouth researcher Anne Sosin, whose work has informed state governments across the country. Her explanation for why most states practice age-banding is straightforward: 

Sosin understands why states are largely holding to vaccinating by age groups. “They have lots of competing claims for a limited supply of vaccines,” she said. “Age-banding is really efficient and simple, but it’s not an equitable approach to vaccination.”

Readers of this blog will, I hope, see an analogy between the age-banding used to allocate vaccines and the age-banding used to group students in schools, a practice that leads to comparisons within the age cohort that have adverse impacts on children beginning in pre-school that carry over into adulthood. Why do we practice age-banding in education? Because it’s “…really efficient and simple”… but like the paradigm for vaccines, it is NOT an equitable way to teach children.