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A racial divide has opened in the national COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with black Americans in many places lagging behind whites in receiving gunfire, according to an Associated Press analysis.
A first look at the 17 states and two cities that issued racial blackouts through January 25 revealed that blacks in all places are being vaccinated at lower levels than their share of the general population, in some cases significantly lower.
This is true even though they constitute an oversized percentage of the country’s healthcare workers, who were put on the front lines for vaccines when the campaign began in mid-December.
For example, in North Carolina, blacks make up 22% of the population and 26% of health workers, but only 11% of those vaccinated so far. Whites, a category in which the state includes both Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites, make up 68% of the population and 82% of those vaccinated.
The gap is deeply troubling to some, given that the coronavirus has taken a disproportionate toll of serious illness and death among blacks in the United States, where the scourge has killed more than 430,000 Americans. Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are dying from COVID-19 at nearly three times the rate of whites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We are going to see a worsening and exacerbation of the racial inequalities in health that existed before the pandemic and which worsened during the pandemic if our communities cannot access the vaccine,” said Dr Uché Blackstock, emergency physician at New York and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, an advocacy group that fights against prejudice and inequality.
Experts say several factors could be behind the emerging disparity, including a deep distrust of the medical establishment among black Americans due to a history of discriminatory treatment; insufficient access to vaccine in black neighborhoods; and a digital divide that can make it difficult to obtain crucial information. Vaccination registrations are largely done online.
“It’s frustrating and difficult,” said Dr. Michelle Fiscus, who heads the Tennessee vaccination program, which is doubling the doses sent to some hard-hit rural counties but is met with deep suspicion among some black Tennessians.
“We have to work very hard to restore that confidence and get these people vaccinated,” Fiscus said. “They die. They are hospitalized.
Hispanics also lagged behind in terms of vaccinations, but their levels were a bit closer to expectations in most of the locations studied. Hispanics are on average younger than other Americans, and vaccinations are not yet open to young people.
However, several states where Hispanic communities have been particularly affected by COVID-19 have yet to report data, including California and New York.
President Joe Biden is trying to bring more fairness to the rollout of the vaccine he inherited from the Trump administration. The Biden administration encourages states to map and target vulnerable neighborhoods using tools like the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, which incorporates data on race, poverty, overcrowded housing and other factors.
“We’re going to take extra steps to reach the hardest to reach people, and that work is underway right now,” said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the COVID-19 Equity Task Force. Biden.
Most states have yet to release racial data on those vaccinated. Even in the states that provided breakdowns, the data is often incomplete, with many records lacking race detail. However, the missing information would not be enough to change the general picture in most cases.
The data came from Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as two cities, Philadelphia and Chicago.
The AP analysis found that whites are vaccinated at levels closer to or higher than expected in most of the states examined.
In the beginning, healthcare workers and nursing home residents generally had priority for vaccines in the United States.
In the past two weeks, many states have opened up eligibility to a larger group of older adults and more frontline workers, which could further reduce the relative proportion of blacks vaccinated. The country’s over-65 population is more heavily white than other age groups.
Among the results:
– In Maryland, blacks make up 30% of the population and 40% of the health sector, but only 16% of those vaccinated so far. Whites, who in state data include both Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites, make up 55% of the population and 67% of those who have been vaccinated. Hispanics of all races make up 11% of the population and 5% of those vaccinated.
– In Philadelphia, blacks make up 40% of the population but only 14% of those vaccinated in the city so far. Hispanics represent 15% of the population and 4% of the vaccinated.
– In Chicago, blacks represent 30% of the population but only 15% of the vaccinated. With Hispanics, the numbers are 29% versus 17%.
The vaccination campaign was slower and more problematic than expected. Many Americans of all races have struggled to get vaccinated because the supply is limited. Overall, about 7% of Americans have received at least one dose. But there are other issues that are slowing vaccination among black Americans and other groups, experts said.
Some black neighborhoods have no one registered to kick.
“What we’ve heard over and over again: A lot of black people want to get it from their doctor or local clinic because that’s where the trust lies,” said Dr Thomas Dobbs, head of health at the Mississippi.
Louisiana uses the CDC tool to locate vulnerable neighborhoods without vaccination sites, and then recruits new vaccinators in those neighborhoods, said public health official Dr. Joseph Kanter.
Other strategies are underway in some states: providing transportation so people can get to their appointments and reach people confined to their homes via mobile vaccination units.
To address the mistrust, Thomas LaVeist, dean of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, is recruiting notable blacks to help promote vaccination. The campaign, titled “The Skin You’re In,” produced a video by New Orleans hip-hop artist Big Freedia showing in a fun way how to wear a mask.
Although LaVeist gives credit to the Trump administration for supporting vaccine development, he said naming the project Operation Warp Speed was a “disastrous” choice because it seemed to emphasize speed, not careful scientific scrutiny.
“I fully understand the mistrust,” said LaVeist, who had his first stroke on Monday. “But you have to consider the risk of COVID versus the risk of the vaccine. It is a devastating disease and it has disproportionately affected black Americans. This is what we know. “
Due to eviction fears, there is also mistrust among Latinos that is undermining the vaccination campaign, as well as a language barrier in many cases, according to activists.
Many black Americans and other people of color are taking steps to ensure their communities receive the vaccine, including Detroit health worker Sameerah Singletary, who is expected to get the vaccine soon.
More than 1,700 residents of the country’s largest predominantly black city have died from the virus, including some of Singletary’s friends and her godmother. Yet she knows many who refuse the vaccine.
“I think there’s such a collective trauma among black people, even in Detroit, that a lot of people have nothing left,” Singletary said. “They were so traumatized they don’t care because the virus was just one more layer.”
But she added, “I feel we need to be part of our healing.”
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