We are now seeing communities with a higher mortality rate and whether or not these neighborhoods receive the vaccine.
SEE ALSO: Houston area residents “hurt” in minority, low-income areas without vaccines
Our research found that a dozen zip codes east of downtown Houston have a higher mortality rate of 151 deaths per 100,000 residents, but the overall vaccination rate for these communities is 4.5%. .
We wanted to look at where vaccines are going and found 40% of Harris County zip codes, where the mortality rate was not that high (with less than 150 deaths per 100,000 residents) and yet there is a percentage highest population. vaccinated. Disparities are the reasons why doctors and clinics advocate for vaccination program leaders to be able to introduce vaccines into neighborhoods versus mass vaccination sites.
“We need them here. We have people dying of COVID, the Hispanic population, African Americans, people on low incomes and resources are here in Harris health. We need them here,” said Glorimar Medina, executive vice president of services Health Care System outpatient clinic last month.
INTERACTIVE: Want to know which communities have a higher mortality rate but fewer vaccinated people? Explore the map for these details broken down by zip code. On the mobile device? Click here for a full screen experience.
Dr. Erica Villalobos, a doctor at the HOPE Aldine Clinic, told her neighborhood that sometimes residents do not have access to transportation, the Internet, or other resources needed to sign up for the vaccine and get a dose.
“The risk of continuing to have no access to the vaccine is an even greater risk of becoming infected with COVID and succumbing to the serious complications associated with COVID, including death,” he said.
In zip code 77039 where its clinic is located, the mortality rate is 109.2 deaths per 100,000 residents and only 2.7% of residents have been vaccinated, according to a city data analysis.
There are more than 28,000 residents living in this neighborhood, but only 600 vaccines have been allocated since the state began eliminating vaccines nine weeks ago. The HOPE Aldine Clinic was approved by the state to provide the vaccine, but they have not yet received any dose.
“We all want what’s best for the community and what’s best for the community right now is being able to vaccinate,” Villalobos said.
Across the county, 3,081 residents have died from COVID-19. The city and county provide information on the number of deaths within each zip code daily.
Vaccine data at zip code for Houston and Harris County are not available on the city or county website. The latest data we received on the number of vaccinated residents in each zip code was updated to February 4, 2021.
Data delay provides some limitations to our analysis. As of this week, 351,391 Harris County residents have received at least one dose of vaccine and 126,632 are fully vaccinated.
We only received data on how many people were vaccinated by zip code for 67% of vaccinated residents in Harris County.
The state has said it would like the agencies to collect better data on vaccination. For example, the race and ethnicity data of 40% of Texas residents who received a vaccine are unknown. It is slightly in Harris County, where race and ethnicity are unknown to only 28% of vaccinated residents.
“[It] it makes it difficult to know if the entities are really reaching out to these communities, ”said Dr. David Lakey, a member of the Texas Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel.
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