The optics of jumping the COVID vaccine line will be terrible and should be damaging. Anyone who has the means to finagle access to a vaccination before essential workers who have no option to work from home should think twice. Media and political scrutiny of those who leverage connections and money for early access will be intense. Conveniently timed claims of fresh diagnoses of chronic asthma or sudden onset diabetes in order to engineer admission to the “at risk” group will — and should — be met with deep suspicion…

Line-cutters will be named and shamed. It’s inevitable, as will be the congressional hearings and front page investigative stories ferreting out who saved their own skin at the expense of others.

No one should want to be the metaphorical man in the fur coat elbowing his way through women and children to secure a seat in the lifeboat. Elites must think carefully about the collective social approbation bound to rain down before seeking a shortcut.