Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Lack Of Trust, Access Creates Chasm Between Blacks, Whites In Rollout
The Hill: Communities Of Color Getting Left Behind In Vaccine Rollout
States are struggling to deliver more COVID-19 vaccines to communities of color as scrutiny increases over a racial inequity in the number of shots administered across the country. Officials have grappled with how to fairly distribute limited supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, often prioritizing the elderly, health care workers and other front-line workers for the first doses. (Hellmann and Johnson, 1/30)
Cincinnati Enquirer: COVID-19: Under 5% Of Black Ohioans Have Gotten At Least 1 Shot
Six weeks into Ohio’s distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, the campaign has largely missed the state’s 1.5 million Black residents due to a lack of supply, a lack of access and a lack of trust in the medical establishment. Fewer than 5% of Ohio residents who’ve gotten at least one injection are Black, although Black Ohioans have constituted nearly 20% of the state's pandemic hospitalizations and 12% of deaths. (Saker and Demio, 1/31)
Houston Chronicle: Vaccine Data Troubles Raise Equity Concerns For Black, Latino Texans
At the onset of the pandemic and again with the vaccine rollout, Texas officials have struggled to gather data critical to protecting Black and Hispanic Texans who are among those at higher risk of serious complications from COVID-19. Almost two months into the vaccine distribution, the Department of State Health Services promised Thursday to begin requiring all providers to report race and ethnicity data for all vaccine recipients. That pledge came after advocates and health experts raised concerns that the information was missing for nearly half of the 1.8 million Texans who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. (Harris and Bureau, 1/31)
AP: Vaccine Skepticism Lurks In Town Famous For Syphilis Study
Lucenia Dunn spent the early days of the coronavirus pandemic encouraging people to wear masks and keep a safe distance from each other in Tuskegee, a mostly Black city where the government once used unsuspecting African American men as guinea pigs in a study of a sexually transmitted disease. Now, the onetime mayor of the town immortalized as the home of the infamous “Tuskegee syphilis study” is wary of getting inoculated against COVID-19. Among other things, she’s suspicious of the government promoting a vaccine that was developed in record time when it can’t seem to conduct adequate virus testing or consistently provide quality rural health care. (Reeves, 2/1)
