I see the discussion has come up about how to distribute the vaccines at first, since it appears that there won't be enough to cover everyone immediately. That was discussed by Nicholas A. Christakis during his recent podcast interview with Joe Rogan. People in public health have studied this and there are different strategies that are probably already being discussed by the people who decide these things, or they should be. The first two categories he mentioned that are probably non-controversial, (1) the people who received placebos during the vaccine trials, which seems like the decent thing to do with people who took risks for everyone else, (2) medical staff and first responders.
He pointed out some controversies that might emerge. For example, one thought is to next give the vaccine to older people and people who already have health problems. But he suggested that strategy was not necessarily the best. if those groups are already isolated anyway, thus minimizing their exposure, it might make more sense to give it to people who are out and about in the work force. If they're protected from getting sick, then they won't pass the virus on to their relatives and friends, who may be old or sick. It's an optimization problem.
One thing I wondered about is that if you receive the vaccine and you subsequently receive a viral load. During the time that you are fighting off the virus, could you still pass the virus on to someone else?
