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The vaccine rollout in New York – once the epicenter of the pandemic – has been plagued by stark racial disparities, with black and Latino residents receiving far fewer doses than white residents, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday.
The city’s demographics were incomplete, but available information revealed for the first time that white New Yorkers navigate the city’s complicated immunization system more easily.
Of the nearly 300,000 people in the city who received a dose and whose race was recorded, about 48 percent were white, 15 percent were Latino, 15 percent were Asian and 11 percent were black. Latino and black residents were under-represented: the city’s population is around 29% Latino and 24% black.
The disparities were even more striking among city residents aged 65 and over: only 9% of the approximately 125,000 older New Yorkers vaccinated were black.
Mr de Blasio, a Democrat in his second term, said he was frustrated that New Yorkers in communities of color hardest hit by the pandemic were not being vaccinated. He is committed to solving the problem by improving the appointment booking system and increasing the distribution in more languages.
“Clearly, we see a deep disparity that needs to be addressed aggressively and creatively,” Mr. de Blasio said at a press conference.
Other cities and states across the country have experienced similar racial disparities in vaccine deployment. In New Jersey, about 48% of those vaccinated were white, and only 3% were black, although about 15% of the state’s population is black, according to state data. In Chicago, about 15% of those vaccinated were black and 53% were white.
But New York City officials immediately accused Mr. de Blasio of failing to reach black and Latino residents. City public attorney Jumaane Williams and comptroller Scott Stringer held a joint press conference on Sunday, calling the deployment “almost criminal” and “national embarrassment.”
“This is a moral and managerial failure of the highest level,” said mayoral candidate Mr Stringer.
They called on Mr de Blasio to stop vaccinating people who live outside the city, correct confusing planning websites and give paid time off for essential workers to get vaccinated.
In New York City, around 600,000 people have received a first dose of the vaccine since mid-December. Mr de Blasio has repeatedly said the city is running out of doses and cannot speed up deployment without a larger offer. The city had only about 53,000 first doses on Sunday.
Mr de Blasio said the best way to tackle racial disparities was to increase the city’s supply so that more New Yorkers receive the vaccine and officials can “organically gain trust” among residents who are reluctant to get vaccinated.
“I honestly believe this is the best remedy for this problem,” he said. The mayor has set a goal of vaccinating five million New Yorkers by June.
The city’s demographics are imperfect – the mayor said many people did not indicate their race and some health providers did not collect it correctly. The race of approximately 263,000 people who received at least one dose of the vaccine was not known.
But for those who provided their information, white residents, who make up about 32% of the city’s population, were over-represented. Asians were represented roughly at their share of the city’s population: about 14% of New Yorkers are Asian and 15% of those vaccinated were.
New Yorkers have complained about the complex appointment scheduling system and long wait times on phone lines. Younger people helped older parents get appointments, and some appointments were canceled due to the city’s declining supply.
Data showed that at least 94,000 people living outside the city were vaccinated in New York City. Mr de Blasio defended this trend, saying many of those vaccinated work in the city. Among those from out of town who received the gunfire, the racial divide was even wider: about 59% were white and 7% were black.
Vaccines against covid19>
Answers to your questions about vaccines
Currently, more than 150 million people – almost half of the population – are eligible for vaccination. But each state makes the final decision as to who goes first. The country’s 21 million healthcare workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to open up eligibility to all people 65 and older and adults of all ages with health conditions that put them at high risk of becoming seriously ill. or die from Covid-19. The adults of the general population are at the back of the pack. If federal and state health authorities can remove the bottlenecks in vaccine distribution, everyone 16 years and older will become eligible as early as this spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are ongoing. It can take months for a vaccine to be available to anyone under the age of 16. Visit your state’s website for up-to-date information on immunization policies in your area.
You shouldn’t have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you don’t have insurance, you should still get the vaccine at no cost. Congress passed a law this spring that prohibits insurers from enforcing any cost sharing, such as a copayment or deductible. It relied on additional protections preventing pharmacies, doctors and hospitals from billing patients, including those who are uninsured. Even so, health experts fear that patients will stumble upon loopholes that expose them to surprise bills. This could happen to those who are billed a doctor’s visit fee with their vaccine, or to Americans who have certain types of health coverage that don’t fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine from a doctor or emergency care clinic, tell them about any hidden costs. To make sure you don’t get a surprise bill, your best bet is to get vaccinated at a health service vaccination site or local pharmacy once vaccines become more widely available.
This remains to be determined. It is possible that the Covid-19 vaccination will become an annual event, just like the flu vaccine. Or the benefits of the vaccine may last for more than a year. We have to wait and see how durable the protection against vaccines is. To determine this, researchers will follow vaccinated people looking for “revolutionary cases” – those people who contract Covid-19 despite being vaccinated. This is a sign of weakening protection and will give researchers clues about how long the vaccine will last. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of people who have been vaccinated to determine if and when a booster injection might be needed. It’s conceivable that people will need boosters every few months, once a year, or just every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.
The mayor said the city would eventually release additional data by postcode to give a better picture of those getting vaccinated.
After The City reported a vaccination site in Manhattan where too many foreigners were receiving doses, the health network that runs the site agreed last week to prioritize residents of the local community and not give new ones. immunization slots than New Yorkers.
Mr de Blasio said the problems at the site, the Armory Vaccination Center in Washington Heights – where nearly 70% of residents are Latinos – were “the exact opposite of what we need.”
“If a site is in a community, especially a community hard hit by Covid, it should be about reaching that community and attracting people,” de Blasio said last week.
Mark Levine, a city councilor who chairs the council’s health committee, called for several measures to close what he called the “vaccine fairness gap,” including giving residents of local postal codes priority planning in communities of color.
“We must act now to correct yet another glaring case of inequity in this pandemic,” said Mr. Levine.
Several other candidates vying to replace Mr de Blasio as mayor have criticized the vaccination efforts. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, said the data was “a stinging indictment of how the system is broken.”
Eric Adams, president of the Brooklyn Borough, said the city’s response to the virus “has turned into our Katrina” – a reference to the hurricane that hit New Orleans in 2005 and left massive injuries black residents.
“We know who is most at risk and who is suffering the most – and they are mostly black and brown,” he said. “They were abandoned and they are dying because of it. It must end today. “
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