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Prioritizing Football Players for COVID-19 Vaccines

You can grade what an institution values by its actions.

In recent days we have had various National Football League (NFL) teams and collegiate football programs be impacted by outbreaks of the coronavirus in their players and staff. Games have been either cancelled or postponed. 

The universities and the NFL are "sweating footballs" worried about what this does to a season. How to crown a champion that didn't play all their games?

Which brings me to who will be the university's priority for getting a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. 

I think a natural progression for society would be:

  1. Medical professionals 
  2. Emergency responders
  3. The elderly, especially those in congregate care facilities
  4. People who have underlying conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus
  5. Critical infrastructure owners and operators
  6. Others?
As for universities, I can see them having a ranking something like this:

  1. Head football coaches (they are the highest paid people in the university system)
  2. Other coaches and staff
  3. Players (they are unpaid and can be replaced)
  4. Cheerleaders
  5. Stadium vendors selling concessions
  6. University professors — tenured first in line
  7. Graduate students
  8. Undergraduate students
  9. Janitorial, cafeteria and other minimum wage staff (they are essential, but...)
Football is only a sport, but it is big money and of major importance to major donors. I guess I should add the football team boosters to the priority list above — just before the vendors?

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.