A top official at the White House COVID-19 response team said Monday that the United States is missing nearly half of the racial and ethnicity data for coronavirus cases and vaccinations.
Dr Marcella Nunez-Smith, President Biden’s chair of the COVID-19 Equity Task Force, said that an understanding of existing inequalities is rooted in the understanding of the data. However, the US does not know the race or ethnicity for 49% of those diagnosed with the new virus, or 47% for the same information among vaccine recipients.
“These insights from our data are critical to our ability to direct and defend our response,” Nunez-Smith said at the briefing on Monday. “Without good data, we are at a disadvantage in terms of stock planning.”
RISING WITH CORONAVIRUS SEVERAL CASES, GET THE COVID-19 VACCINE ‘AS SOON AS POSSIBLE,’ ‘FAUCI SAY
“We need to address these insufficient data points as an urgent priority,” she added.
The coronavirus pandemic highlighted deep-rooted and long-lasting inequalities; racial minorities have an increased risk of hospitalization and death due to the new virus compared to white individuals, although the percentage per race / ethnicity differs.
A few weeks after the deployment of the country, Nunez-Smith cited several reasons for the lack of vaccination data, such as a ‘lack of federal coordination before, the unequal implementation among states, a conflicting emphasis on equity in the earliest days of vaccination. ‘
PROVIDENCE OF COVID-19 DETECTION ON SUPPLY IS SOLUBLE PROBLEM,’S CEO OF HEALTHCARE
According to recent findings of the Kaiser Family Foundation, only “17 states have reported the COVID-19 vaccinations by race / ethnicity in public since 19 January.
“As the spread of vaccines continues, ensuring racial equality will be important in reducing the excessive effects of COVID-19 on people of color, increasing health inequalities and achieving broad population immunity,” the report said. the Kaiser Family Foundation.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 50 million coronavirus vaccines have been distributed to states, and more than 31 million doses have gone into Americans’ arms.
GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The CDC has race and ethnicity data available for 51% of approximately 19.4 million cases, or 9,940,836 infections. According to the figures, white populations are 56% (or more than 5.5 million people) with the highest percentage of cases, with Latino and black populations 21% and 12% of cases respectively.
“That 49% of COVID-19 cases may in fact reflect the demographics of the other 51%, but it is more likely to reflect the inherent inequalities in how we collect and report data in different locations based on resources and how much equity is prioritized, ”Nunez-Smith said during the briefing.
In terms of deaths due to the new virus, the CDC has 77% of race and ethnicity data available, for 239,877 deaths out of about 310,944, although the U.S. exceeded 442,000 total coronavirus-related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. .
Similarly, white populations had the highest mortality rate at 62%, with black and Latino populations at 16% and 13%, respectively. However, previously published rate ratios from the CDC state that black and Latino populations are almost three times more likely to die from the virus compared to white individuals.