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Latin Americans and black Americans continue to be vaccinated against Covid at the lowest rate despite political promises to redress inequalities, new analysis reveals.
Only 4.6% of Latinos and 5.7% of Black Americans have so far received a dose of the vaccine, compared to 11.3% of White Americans and 10.5% of Asian Americans, according to an analysis of ‘APM Research Lab shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Pacific Islanders have the highest inoculation rate, according to the limited data available, with 16.3% (about one in six) having received at least one dose. Maryland vaccinated 43.4% of that population – the highest proportion reported of any community in any state.
The second highest rate is for Native Americans, with 12.8% (one in eight) having received at least one blow.
Despite some progress, available state health data clearly suggests that access to Covid vaccines – just like testing and economic aid – is disproportionately low for Latin Americans and black Americans, the two most large minority communities in the United States.
According to Dr. Kathleen Page, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the consequences of unfair vaccine deployment are bad for public health, as pockets of high transmission could delay efforts to control the pandemic.
“It’s not just a question of fairness; even if we want to be selfish it doesn’t make sense as we will continue to see high transmission hotspots across the country and this is where new variants will emerge.
Page added: “The inequity we see is not just a reluctance to vaccinate – it’s just an excuse to blame the victims. These are very real barriers and our broad approach to priority groups, which means high-risk people from Latin black and black communities do not meet the criteria. The white population is significantly older than other ethnic groups, and the elderly have been prioritized by every state. But the deaths of the Latin American population are concentrated among working-age groups.
Overall, new Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths are on the decline, but more than half a million Americans have already died, new variants are emerging, and localized outbreaks are still occurring throughout. the country.
The pace of vaccine distribution has accelerated since Joe Biden took office and about 1.6 million doses are now administered each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The data remains patchy, but overall, Pennsylvania is one of the worst performing states, having vaccinated just 1.2% of Latin Americans and 1.6% of black residents. The vaccination rate for White Pennsylvanians is almost half the national average.
In Georgia, only 5.8% of black Americans and 1.7% of Latinos received at least one dose of the vaccination against nearly 13.4% of white residents. In California, 12.5% of Asian Americans and 12.7% of white Americans received an injection compared to 5.7% of Latin Americans and 7.4% of black Americans.
For Indigenous people, the most notable states are Virginia, where healthcare workers gave nearly 37% of Indigenous people at least one dose, and Alaska, with 32%. This compares to just 2.2% in Mississippi.
News of the relatively rapid rollout of vaccination in the Indian country comes shortly after the Guardian revealed Native Americans are dying from Covid faster than any other community in the United States. A recent poll suggests that vaccine reluctance is low among American Indians and Alaskan Natives compared to other groups.
Page’s targeted approach to immunization would increase outreach efforts in localized hot spots. Here, the criteria currently used to prioritize eligibility would be relaxed to include people at high risk, such as those who live in crowded housing, those who do not have access to email, those who speak limited English. and people with undiagnosed health problems like excluded diabetes – and their families.
So far, only 27 states and the District of Columbia have published comparable data on the number and share of their racial and ethnic communities that have received one or both doses of the vaccine. New York, Illinois, New Mexico, Minnesota and Washington are among the states that have not released data on ethnicity, making it impossible to hold those responsible to account.
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