Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci highlighted the need to address racial disparities in the COVID-19 vaccination process, in an interview with The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
What it says: “I think it’s the only thing we have to keep in mind. At first we don’t want to … most of the people who get it are otherwise middle-class white people.”
“You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people that they are really the most vulnerable … you don’t want to have a situation where people who really need it, where they are, where they live, what their financial situation is, who don’t have access to the vaccine. “
- “It simply came to our notice then the hesitation of the minority population. They keep coming back and telling Tuskegee’s story, ”Biden’s chief medical officer said, referring to a situation in the 1930s in which the federal government denied black men in Alabama treatment for syphilis and secretly documented how the disease destroyed their bodies for decades.
- “They don’t, they can’t and they shouldn’t forget it, because it happened and it was embarrassing. “
- He pointed to Biden’s chief medical adviser that health officials need to convince people of color “that the safeguards that have been established since then … would make it essentially impossible for a Tuskegee situation to occur again. “
The big picture: In the 16 states that have published vaccination data by race, white residents have been vaccinated at rates that are often two to three times higher than black ones, writes Caitlin Owens of Axios.
- People of color have a higher risk of contracting coronavirus and also have higher COVID-related mortality rates than white people.
- Colored communities also tend to have fewer pharmacies per capita, making it harder to get vaccinated and distrust the process due to past medical malpractice.
- Immigrants who do not speak English face additional barriers to access.
In depth: Colored communities lagging behind in America’s vaccination effort