“Equitable” is a bureaucratic term for “We’ll decide who is worthy of being helped.” If more than four-fifths of the state’s COVID deaths were among its vulnerable elderly; how can it “equitable” to deliberately reroute the vaccine to a much younger and healthier population?
Cuomo claims that this decision is guided by the historical plight of “underserved” communities in New York City: but ignores the needs of the state’s historically even more underserved rural communities. Would anyone allow an Urban Community to be told by municipal planners that they “don’t deserve to live there,” and to be excluded from any participation or importance in their own future?
This is the sort of policy making that happens routinely, unchecked and unreported, in rural New York State.
“Equitable” and “underserved” are part of a future that appears more like “Lord of the Flies” than a Peaceable Kingdom.
They are terms that define a government that searches; not for a greater compassion — but for a greater control.