The explosion of vaccines in New York City, once the center of the pandemic, has been plagued by severe racial differences, and residents of Black and Latino have received far fewer doses than white residents, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday.
The city’s demographic data was incomplete, but the information available revealed for the first time that white New Yorkers navigated the city’s complex vaccination system more easily.
Of the nearly 300,000 residents of the city who received one dose and whose race was recorded, about 48 percent were white, 15 percent Latino, 15 percent Asian, and 11 percent black. Residents of Latino and Black were underrepresented: the city’s population is about 29 percent Latino and 24 percent black.
The difference was even more pronounced among residents 65 and older: only 9 percent of the approximately 125,000 older New Yorkers who were vaccinated were black.
Mr. De Blasio, a Democrat in his second term, said he was frustrated that New Yorkers are not being vaccinated in color communities hardest hit by the pandemic. He has committed to addressing the issue by improving the appointment system and increasing outreach in more languages.
“It is clear that we are seeing a serious difference that needs to be addressed aggressively and creatively,” he said. De Blasio said at a news conference.
Other cities and states across the country have seen similar racial differences in vaccine vaccination. In New Jersey, about 48 percent of vaccine recipients were white and only 3 percent were black, although about 15 percent of the state’s population is black, according to state data. In Chicago, about 15 percent of vaccine recipients were black and 53 percent white.
But elected officials in New York City immediately blamed Mr. De Blasio brought that he did not reach black and Latino residents. The city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, and the governor, Scott Stringer, held a joint news conference on Sunday, calling the rollout ‘almost’ criminal ‘and a’ national embarrassment ‘.
“This is a moral and managerial failure of the highest order,” he said. Stringer, who is running for mayor, said.
They appealed to Mr. De Blasio done to stop vaccinating people living outside the city, to rectify the confusing schedule sites and to get essential workers paid to be vaccinated.
In New York City, about 600,000 people have received a first dose of the vaccine since mid-December. Mr. De Blasio has repeatedly said that the city’s doses are low and cannot accelerate implementation without a greater supply. The city had only about 53,000 first doses left on Sunday.
Mr. De Blasio said the best way to address racial differences was to increase the city’s supply so that more New Yorkers could get the vaccine and officials could gain organic confidence among residents who were reluctant to take the plunge.
“I honestly believe this is the best solution to this problem,” he said. The mayor’s goal is to get five million New Yorkers vaccinated by June.
The city’s demographic data is imperfect – the mayor said many people did not provide their race, and some health care providers did not collect it properly. The race of about 263,000 people who received at least one dose of the vaccine was not known.
But for those who did provide their information, white residents, who make up about 32 percent of the city’s population, were overrepresented. Asians were about their share of the city population: about 14 percent of New Yorkers were Asians, and 15 percent of the vaccine recipients were.
New Yorkers complain about the complicated system of scheduling an appointment and long waiting times on phone lines. Younger people helped older family members make an appointment, and some appointments were canceled because the city’s inventory decreased.
The data showed that at least 94,000 people living outside the city were vaccinated in New York. Mr. De Blasio defended the trend, saying many of those vaccinated work in the city. Among people from outside the city who received the shots, the racial division was even wider: about 59 percent were white and 7 percent black.
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Answers to your vaccine questions
At present, more than 150 million people can be vaccinated – almost half of the population. But each state makes the final decision about who goes first. The country’s 21 million health workers and three million residents of long-term care facilities were the first to qualify. In mid-January, federal officials urged all states to be eligible for anyone 65 and older and for adults of any age with medical conditions at high risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of Covid-19 . Adults in the general population are at the back of the queue. If federal and state health officials can clear up bottlenecks in the distribution of vaccines, everyone 16 years and older will be eligible as early as spring or early summer. The vaccine has not been approved in children, although studies are underway. It can take months for a vaccine to be available to anyone under the age of 16. Visit your health website for recent information on vaccination policies in your area.
You do not have to pay anything out of pocket to get the vaccine, although you will be asked for insurance information. If you do not have insurance, you should still receive the vaccine free of charge. Congress passed this spring legislation that prohibits insurers from applying any cost sharing, such as a co-payment or deductible. It was based on additional protection that pharmacies, doctors and hospitals prevented from patients, including those who were not insured. Nevertheless, health experts are concerned that patients could end up in loopholes that make them vulnerable to surprising bills. This can happen to those who charge a doctor’s fee along with their vaccine, or Americans who have certain types of health coverage that do not fall under the new rules. If you get your vaccine at a doctor’s office or an urgent clinic, talk to them about possible hidden charges. To make sure that you will not get a surprise bill, it is best to take your vaccination at a vaccination center or a local pharmacy as soon as the shots are more available.
It must be determined. It is possible that Covid-19 vaccinations will become an annual event, just like the flu shot. Or it could be that the benefits of the vaccine last longer than a year. We have to wait and see how durable the protection against the vaccines is. To determine this, researchers will be monitoring people who have been vaccinated to look for “breakthrough cases” – people who become ill despite being vaccinated with Covid-19. This is a sign of weakening of protection and will give researchers clues as to how long the vaccine will last. They will also monitor the levels of antibodies and T cells in the blood of vaccines to determine if and when a booster shot is needed. It is possible that people need boosters every few months, once a year or only every few years. It’s just a matter of waiting for the data.
The mayor said the city will eventually release additional data by zip code to give a better picture of who gets vaccinated.
After The City reported on one vaccination site in Manhattan where too many outsiders received doses, the health network that runs the site agreed last week to prioritize residents from the local community and give only new vaccines to New Yorkers.
Mr. De Blasio said the problems at the site, the Armory Vaccination Center in Washington Heights – where nearly 70 percent of the residents are Latino – are the “exact opposite of what we need.”
“If a website is in a community, especially a community that is being hit hard by Covid, it should be all about reaching out to the community and bringing in people,” he said. De Blasio said last week.
Mark Levine, a city councilor who chairs the council’s health committee, called for several measures to close the ‘vaccine gap’ he calls, including giving priority to residents of local postcodes in colored communities.
“We must act now to resolve another serious issue of inequality in this pandemic,” he said. Levine said.
Several other candidates replacing Mayor de Blasio as mayor have criticized the vaccination efforts. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, said the data was a “serious accusation of how broken the system is.”
Brooklyn City Council President Eric Adams said the city’s response to the virus had “turned into our Katrina” – a reference to the hurricane that struck New Orleans in 2005 and overwhelmingly harmed black residents.
“We know who is at the greatest risk and who is suffering the most – and they are mostly black and brown,” he said. “They were let down and therefore died. It should end today. ”