Who to Immunize?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052203216.html?hpid=moreheadlines

While it is generally accepted that a vaccine would be good to have among the H1N1 "Swine Flu" outbreak, the bigger question is who should get the vaccine, as it is in limited supply. "The first tier [of vaccinations], of about 24 million people, includes deployed armed forces members; critical health-care workers; fire, police and ambulance workers; pregnant women and small children. " This shows the government's priorities during a possible pandemic, maintaining public order, health research, and people who will more actively contribute to population growth. This is a decision that is made politically, as one could also decide a first tier of those most susceptible to the disease, which would include elderly and the sick. The balance of qualitative judgment is what distinguishes the world of math and real life. While the network calculations would indicate that slowing down the disease should distribute the vaccines to those susceptible and "close" to those already infected, the real world calculations indicate a more complex decision tree of maintaining functioning government and minimizing infection rates. So while math may lay down very accurate guidelines as to what to do, in the end the world ends up too complicated for a calculation, and the decision must be weighed by our politicians (for better or for worse).

There may be some sense to the decisions used. Elderly may be more susceptible to serious complications, but there is also the probability of contraction to take into account. Health care officials, (armed forces in some places), and public emergency officials are exposed to a large number of people in various places in a community's networks. In a sense, they are local bridges between a great number of people in terms of exposure. If they are immunized, they no longer could carry the entire disease around town, etc. Health care officials especially need it, because they have such a high probability of coming into contact with it. Although the disease can spread, it can be drastically slowed by cutting many of those local bridges between intra-community clusters.