Jared Evan

Every US state has been advised to consider ethnic minorities as a critical and vulnerable group in their vaccine distribution plans, according to Centers for Disease Control guidance.

The Daily Mail analyzed the available information and claims 25 states have race-based vaccine distribution plans, by looking at the individual state outlines. The Kaiser Family Foundation- has links to every state’s individual COVID Vaccination plans(LINK) 

According to Daily Mail analysis, 25 states have committed to a focus on racial and ethnic communities as they decided which groups should be prioritized in receiving a coronavirus vaccine dose.

For example:  in New Mexico,  Native Americans are being prioritized.

California has committed to ensuring black and Hispanic people have greater access to the vaccine.

Oregon, where health officials have said that ethnic minorities have ‘equitable access’ to the shot.

Daily Mail  reported:

Some states have made even more specific plans to prioritize communities of color, with 12 states specifically mentioning efforts to partner with healthcare providers in areas with a large minority population to reach ‘diverse populations’, according to Kaiser Family Foundation.

A recent Kaiser survey showed that more than one-third of black Americans remain hesitant to get a vaccine, and CDC research claims Hispanic and black populations are almost three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than whites, they claim this is due to economic disparities.

It would seem strange to blame financial status being  that the obvious reasons such as dietary differences between cultures and the fact different races have certain more common genetically inherent diseases than others

For example according to Web MD :

• Diabetes is 60% more common in black Americans than in white Americans. Blacks are up to 2.5 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and up to 5.6 times more likely to suffer kidney disease than other people with diabetes.
• African-Americans are three times more likely to die of asthma than white Americans.
• Deaths from lung scarring — sarcoidosis — are 16 times more common among blacks than among whites. The disease recently killed former NFL star Reggie White at age 43.
• Despite lower tobacco exposure, black men are 50% more likely than white men to get lung cancer.
• Strokes kill 4 times more 35- to 54-year-old black Americans than white Americans. Blacks have nearly twice the first-time stroke risk of whites.

Preventative health measures for those who are more susceptible to serious illness seems like an obvious solution. Diabetes for example is one of the leading comorbidities which cause COVID deaths.

A  major problem for vaccine distribution is simple, certain minority populations simply do not trust the government. Making distribution race-based will only add to more skepticism from minorities and resentment from the groups not prioritized.

Creating a race-based system will most likely create more racial friction in a country that was torn apart by months of anti-police, race-based protests. This kind of plan can create reverse discrimination lawsuits, where non-prioritized groups, take legal actions against their state for denying them access to the vaccine.

 Daily Mail reported: A recent piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association from experts Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University, Harald Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania, and Michelle Williams of Harvard University, noted that the plan may not pass any challenge made at the Supreme Court.

The group suggests that instead there should be a ‘racially neutral vaccine allocation criteria’ that would focus on ‘geography, socioeconomic status, and housing density’ but still work to help minorities.

How about age, and pre-existing conditions?  This would seem the most obvious method of prioritization.

None of these ideas are actually taking place yet. Hopefully clearer and more logical policies will prevail