NEW YORK, Feb 2 ― Early data on US coronavirus vaccinations released yesterday suggests that Blacks and Hispanics received a smaller proportion of shots than their representation among healthcare workers and nursing home residents, two priority groups for Covid-19 inoculations.
The United States needs more complete data on the race and ethnicity of people who have been vaccinated, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which released the data.
Blacks and Hispanics have been particularly hard hit by Covid-19 with a disproportionate number of deaths, and public health officials have broadly called for equity in vaccine distribution.
Race data was only available for about half of the 12.9 million people vaccinated in the United States between December 14, 2020 and January 14, 2021.
Blacks received 5.4 per cent of shots reported with race/ethnicity data, the CDC said, despite national data showing they made up 16 per cent of healthcare workers and 14 per cent of nursing home residents, two groups prioritised for the first wave of vaccinations.
Hispanics received 11.5 per cent of the shots, according to the available data, while making up 13 per cent of healthcare workers and 5 per cent of nursing home residents.
Whites received 60.4 per cent of shots and accounted for 60 per cent of healthcare workers and 75 per cent of nursing home residents.
Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the Biden administration's Covid-19 Health Equity Task Force, told reporters yesterday that the data so far suggests that Black Americans and other non-white groups are not being vaccinated at the same rate as white Americans.
She added that she thinks that if data had been collected for everyone who received shots, it would show an even greater imbalance.
New York City on Sunday reported that while Blacks made up 24 per cent of the city's population, according to 2019 data, they have so far sought and received only 11 per cent of coronavirus vaccinations.
The federal data showed that of those for whom racial/ethnic data was reported, 14.4 per cent were reported as multiple/other, 6.0 per cent Asian and 2.0 per cent American Indian or Alaskan Natives, the study showed.
In addition to the limited availability of racial data, the CDC said the report also had to contend with varying criteria for administering shots among states and vaccination centres. ― Reuters
