Why black Americans are not vaccinated the same doses as whites for COVID-19

Early data on the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines show that minority populations in the United States that are already being excessively affected by the pandemic are not being vaccinated at the same rate as white Americans.

Yahoo News Medical Contributor, dr. Uché Blackstock, believes there are several factors that contribute to this difference.

“One of the problems I saw very early on is that if you’re going to get mostly hospitals and pharmacies handing out the vaccine, we’ll be missing a lot of people,” Blackstock said. According to recent research by GoodRX, minority communities tend to have fewer pharmacies per capita, which disadvantages them based on their place of residence.

This photo from Sunday 25 October 2020 in New York shows dr.  Uché Blackstock, a physician in emergency medicine and CEO of Advancing Health Equity - an organization that promotes equality and justice in healthcare, has been sounding about racial inequality in healthcare for years.  (Bebeto Matthews / AP Photo)
Dr. Uché Blackstock, medical associate of Yahoo News and CEO of Advancing Health Equity. (Bebeto Matthews / AP)

“We need to bring the vaccines to the people,” Blackstock added, suggesting that mobile vaccination units could help increase access in areas where transportation is a problem.

In 16 countries that released preliminary data on who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, there was a chance that white residents were more likely to get shot than blacks, reports KHN. In Pennsylvania, data through Jan. 14 showed that while 1.3 percent of whites in the state received a vaccination, only 0.3 percent of black residents had it. In Mississippi, 1.3 percent of the population of African-Americans has been vaccinated so far, compared to 3.5 percent of the white population.

Although there are many factors that may explain the early difference in the vaccination rate, Blackstock believes that the pattern will remain.

‘This is the same thing people said at the beginning of the pandemic, when there were incomplete data showing that black people and Latinx people were also infected and hospitalized and dying at higher prices. But once we get the full data, it confirms the initial data, as we already know which communities are vulnerable, ‘Blackstock said.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a news conference at the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Monday, January 25, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch / UPI / Bloomberg via Getty images)
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki at a news conference on Monday. (Kevin Dietsch / UPI / Bloomberg via Getty images)

African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans die from COVID-19 nearly three times more than white Americans, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. These minority groups are also about four times as likely to be hospitalized with the coronavirus as white Americans are.

“If we see these trends at the beginning, I think, this is now an opportunity to respond to the data, right?” Blackstock said about the deployment of the vaccine. “To direct our efforts according to the data. And if we see these trends early on, we can try to correct the course. ”

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the challenge of achieving President Biden’s goal of vaccinating 1 million Americans every day for the next 100 days.

‘Of course, it’s not just about supply. “It is also about more people being able to physically place the shots in the arms of Americans and to ensure that we have places that can be done,” Psaki said.

Healthcare workers administer the COVID-19 vaccine to residents living in the Jackson Heights area of ​​St. Louis.  Johns Missionary Baptist Church resides, January 10, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.  (Octavio Jones / Getty Images)
A health care worker donates a COVID-19 vaccine in Tampa on January 10th. (Octavio Jones / Getty Images)

Biden has often talked about the need for a fair pandemic response. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order declaring that “the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated serious and widespread health and social inequalities in America” ​​and ordered the federal agencies to coordinate a response. .

Blackstock said another factor contributing to the provisional low vaccination rates among African Americans is the skepticism about vaccines, which she attributed to a long-standing pattern of discrimination against minorities by the medical institution. But she believes there are ways to combat the mistrust.

“I think, with the issue, we need health workers and those communities to be able to talk to their patients about the vaccine and to answer the questions,” she said. an effort must be strengthened by a national public health campaign to promote vaccines.

‘We have to see [it] on buses and trains and billboards, social media, TV commercials, ”Blackstock said. ‘We need to see information about the vaccine, why it’s important for people to take it, and to see positive images around the vaccine. We have not seen it at all. ”

Residents are waiting in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at St.Johns Missionary Baptist Church on January 10, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.  (Octavio Jones / Getty Images)
People waiting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on January 10 in Tampa. (Octavio Jones / Getty Images)

Finally, Blackstock noted that some minority communities do not have access to or have the skills with the technology required by some health systems to register for an appointment to be vaccinated.

“If you have the vaccines there, but people from the community are unable to make appointments due to the cumbersome process of signing up for a vaccine … then the people who need the vaccine will not get it right. , “Blackstock added. . “And we are going to reinforce the inequalities we have already seen in the pandemic.”

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Source