Maps show that the hardest hit zip codes by COVID-19 have low vaccination rates

From the beginning of the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine, experts have warned that it will pay close attention to ensuring that it is distributed fairly. Ensuring that non-white and poorer communities have access to life-saving vaccines is a matter of justice and a necessity for public health. During 2020, these groups had higher mortality rates and diseases due to the virus than white and wealthy people, so protecting them would be the key to the general goal of using vaccines to save most lives.

Despite these warnings, the COVID-10 vaccination campaign started off rough and uneven. By mid-January, when 17 states reported data on race and ethnicity, analyzes showed that black and Hispanic people were vaccinated at lower prices than their share of the population. The pattern continued until February. Across the country, wealthy and white people showed up at poor neighborhoods at vaccination clinics and displaced locals who were not so well able to go through the survey process.

Many cities, including New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC, publish maps showing COVID-19 vaccination rates by zip code or section. It is striking to see them next to maps of areas with the highest COVID-19 deaths: it is almost the reverse. Officials are trying to rectify this by prioritizing suburban residents for some vaccination sites, and organizing events at community centers such as churches, or go from door to door.

But the footage is a clear sign of how much work still needs to be done.

New York City

Overall, about 11 percent of New Yorkers received the first dose of COVID-19. But in some parts of the city with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate due to the pandemic, only about 3 to 5 percent of people started getting vaccinated.

Washington DC

Elderly people who are eligible for vaccination in Washington, DC’s affluent wards are more likely to be vaccinated than people in the poorer, predominantly black wards.

Chicago

Only 4 percent of the residents in the Spanish Chicago Code with one majority received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, even though the area had one of the highest death rates in the city.