Apparently, White Americans have had it too good for too long and they want to “level the playing field,” which translates into more elderly White deaths.
Half of US States Want to Prioritize non-Whites Over Whites For Vaccine
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.
As a result, half of the nation’s states have outlined plans that now prioritize black, Hispanic and indigenous residents over white people in some way, as the vaccine rollout begins.
According to our 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.
These include New Mexico, where collaboration with Native Americans is being prioritized; California, which has committed to ensuring black and Hispanic people have greater access to the vaccine; and Oregon, where health officials have said that ethnic minorities with have ‘equitable access’ to the shot.
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.
Twenty five states with publicly available plans for their rollout make ‘at least one mention of incorporating racial equity into their considerations for targeting of priority populations’ Pictured a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center is inoculated on Monday
The CDC has also issued guidance on its Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) that uses 15 U.S. census variables to help local officials identify communities that may need support.
It is being used in states such as Michigan where minority status and language spoken could be taken into consideration when deciding how high a priority you are for receiving a vaccine.
States referencing black, Hispanic and indigenous residents as a priority in their Covid vaccine plans
California, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming
Maine, in particular, has developed a ‘Racial/Ethnic Minority COVID-19 Vaccination Plan’ in an attempt to give a preference to groups that ‘have experienced rates of disease that far exceed their representation in the population as a whole’.
In the US, black and Hispanic people are almost three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than whites.
It comes as the US added a second COVID-19 vaccine to its arsenal Friday, boosting efforts to beat back an outbreak so dire that the nation is regularly recording more than 3,000 deaths a day.
Much-needed doses are set to arrive Monday after the Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency rollout of the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health.
In the first stage of the vaccine rollout, most states followed the Centers for Disease Controls recommendation that health care workers and nursing home residents get the very first doses.
However, state-to-state variations are likely to increase in the next-priority groups, said the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Jennifer Kates, who has been analyzing state vaccination plans.
‘I think we’re going to see states falling out in different ways,’ with some putting older people ahead of essential workers, Kates said.
These differences could also be seen in the ways that states decide to prioritize sections of the population depending on race.
While the Kaiser report said that many state plans reported more ‘general or indirect methods’ of focusing on minority groups, several states have already lined them up as the next vaccine target groups.
A recent study from the National Governors Association also showed that ‘many states have incorporated health equity principles in their vaccination plans to varying degrees’.
It reported that California, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Indiana have listed fairness, equity, or both as key principles for vaccine distribution.
Oregon is also emphasizing health equity as a central pillar of its rollout, while North Carolina ‘specifically cited historically marginalized populations as an early-phase critical population group’.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has said that experts are ‘making sure black and brown communities disproportionately are benefited’ by the vaccine rollout
In Oregon, the health authority said that ‘Black, Indigenous, Latino/Latina/Latinx, Pacific Islander, and Tribal communities [will] have equitable access to vaccination’, after the head of the public health department, Rachael Banks, announced that vaccines would be ‘particularly focused on our communities of color who’ve seen unfair disproportionate impact from COVID-19’.
New Mexico is prioritizing collaboration with Native Americans while New Hampshire has also developed a health equity strategy.
New Jersey and California plan to prioritize minorities by working to remove barriers to accessibility such as transportation and wait times.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has said that experts are ‘making sure black and brown communities disproportionately are benefited because of the impact they have felt disproportionately because of COVID-19’.
Latinos make up 60 percent of Covid cases in the state, even though they are 40 percent of the population, according to the Guardian, with farmworkers being significantly effected .
Governor Andrew Cuomo echoed these thoughts in New York.
‘We know that our Black, brown and poorer communities have fewer health care institutions,’ he said last month. ‘Their communities too often have health care deserts.’ (That’s an exaggerated lie. — ed.)
Dr. Robert Redfield, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director,…