Well no one -likes- getting covid but there's a far cry from dying from it as the groups who are more apt to want to get it first. If you want to use a more statistics based approach like "well we're going to vaccinate those who are most likely to spread it" (say 20 somethings or republicans who won't wear masks) the general public is not going to go along with that and start making calls to congress critters really quickly since they are afraid memaw is gonna die because she can't get a vaccine while all the college kids throwing ragers on the street are now effectively just a bit safer than before (they were already highly unlikely to die from the disease). Americans by and large do not understand statistics (or even the scientific approach in general) to minimize spreading but "getting shots in arms of those most likely to die" has an undeniable "folksy" logic. The most important thing (the 90% problem) is to get vaccines cranking out as fast as possible and into people, everything else is background noise. I would have been fine with a randomized system based on a voluntary signup list.