Covid vaccine: Should politicians be among the first to receive the jab?

While federal lawmakers remain divided along party and ideological lines on how to infuse the US economy and health care system with more pandemic relief, nearly all are saying the right things about the Covid vaccine that is being distributed across the country.

Both chambers have held numerous hearings reassuring Americans the drugs are safe.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee last week grilled FedEx and UPS executives — the shipping titans responsible for getting the vaccines where they need to go — on whether they were prepared for the months ahead.

And perhaps most importantly for their favorability ratings: Nearly all lawmakers, uniformly, have said are not concerned when they get the jab themselves.

“I, myself, will take the vaccine as soon as it is appropriate and recommended. I will not skip the line. But make no mistake: We should all lead by example, commit to taking the vaccine, and tell our constituents to take it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday.

It’s a position on vaccines that transcends party lines.

“I’ll take it first, take it last, take it based on seniority. I don’t care,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told the Wall Street Journal last week.

Superficially speaking, it’s a noble position: Putting the well-being of one’s constituents on the same plane as oneself.

It’s also a necessary pose to strike to avoid an obvious political trap.

Lawmakers have a checkered history of appearing to leverage their positions of power for their own personal benefit, including to the advantage of their investment portfolios (see: GOP Senators Richard Burr and David Perdue).

No one wants to be the politician who has spent months advocating for getting kids and teachers back into their classrooms, but then says he should get the vaccine before they do.

Elected officials go to incredible lengths to bring themselves down to the level of their constituents. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy constantly touts the fact he started his own small business at the age of 21; Senator Chuck Grassley grumbles about missing his cornfields; Barack Obama is famous for donning blue jeans and rolling his sleeve cuffs to barnstorm the industrial Midwest.

But in the middle of a pandemic, millions of American lives and livelihoods are at stake if Congress or the occupant of the Oval Office gets sick and can’t reauthorise key unemployment and small business lending programmes, or replenish funding for personal protective equipment.

Both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dithered earlier this year on rolling out a comprehensive testing regime on the US Capitol campus, apprehensive about the optics of Washington elites receiving daily rapid-response tests as thousands of Americans waited days for a test and their results.

Now anyone who goes into the Capitol — from the speaker herself, all the way on down to an intern for a House Republican backbencher — can request a free Covid test.

Throughout the year, dozens of lawmakers have fallen ill — often in clusters — threatening to throw off the democratically decided balance of each chamber and disrupt essential government work. Just a few months ago, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process was threatened by fears that too many Republicans had Covid and the Senate GOP majority might not have the votes to advance her nomination.

One can well imagine how heated the confirmation fights over President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet choices could become if Covid sidelines a decisive number of senators from one party to sway the vote.

The Senate would stand a greater chance of avoiding such mayhem if every senator was vaccinated.

It’s unclear whether the public health officials handling the distribution would set aside 535 doses for members. Congressional offices have not received any word, The Independent has learned.

Via a Capitol Hill official: “The Hill has not been notified regarding how many doses will be available and therefore any speculation at this time is just that.”

Then there’s the question of convincing a skeptical US public that the vaccine is safe. Black Americans have the least faith in vaccine safety of any racial group, a reality rooted in the country’s racist, scientifically exploitative past.

It would go a long way in dispelling so-called vaccine hesitancy if several prominent black politicians and community leaders received the jab publicly, experts have suggested.

“When the scientists say that they are ready for us to have it, let’s do it in a very public way,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn told the Journal.

“I don’t think that lawmakers ought to get ahead, but we ought to take our place wherever the scientists tell us,” said Mr Clyburn, the highest-ranking black elected official in the country.

It could save thousands more lives, however, if prominent members such as Mr Clyburn could be among the first Americans to receive the vaccine to reassure those who will get the first crack at it.

Covid won’t wait for elected officials to help show everyone the vaccine is safe.