Vaccine Rollout At Prisons Dips Below General Population

The CT Mirror: Three Weeks Into COVID-19 Vaccinations, DOC Has Vaccinated 10% Of Inmates, 40% Of Staff
Three weeks into the Department of Correction’s vaccinations of the incarcerated population, 837 inmates — less than 10% of the 9,034 people in prisons and jails as of Feb. 22 — have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The department received another 500 doses Tuesday morning. Department Director of External Affairs Karen Martucci said the DOC has used all of the shots it has received and is seeking more. (Lyons, 2/23)

The Baltimore Sun: They Are Prioritized For COVID Vaccines. But Some Marylanders With Disabilities Still Facing Access Hurdles. 
Frustration consumes Nadina Funk when she turns on the news and sees footage of young, healthy-looking people rolling up their sleeves for the COVID-19 vaccine. Funk, an Overlea resident, has not yet found an appointment for herself or for her 30-year-old son, James, affectionately known as “Jimmy.” He is intellectually disabled, according to Funk, 63, who is his caregiver. And while James is mobile and sometimes verbal, he is not able to live alone. (Miller and Williams IV, 2/24)

Capital & Main: Vaccines Are Not Reaching Hardest Hit Los Angeles Communities 
Veronica Sance was irate. For days, she’d been monitoring the sidewalk in front of a prime South Los Angeles COVID-19 vaccination site, Kedren Community Health Center. And she did not like what she was seeing.“I was here on Thursday, Friday and Monday, and I was the only African American in the standby line,” a situation she described as “horrendous.” After securing a dose of the vaccine for herself, the 60-year-old activist who lives nearby returned the following week with a sign: “Go home vaccine chasers! Leave our vaccines alone!” On this particular day, the line of people willing to wait hours for unclaimed vaccines included a smattering of Asians, Latinos, African Americans, as well as whites. (Goodheart and Albaladejo, 2/23)

Detroit Free Press: 3.7% Of COVID-19 Vaccines Went To Black Michiganders
Just 3.7% of the nearly 1.3 million Michiganders who have gotten at least a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine are Black, even though they make up 13.7% of the state's population, new data released Tuesday from the state health department shows. People who identified as white got 41.7% of the first-dose vaccines, and 1.1% of first-dose vaccines were put into the arms of people who are listed as Asian or Pacific Islander, though they account for about 3.3% of the population. American Indian/Alaskan Natives got 0.3% of the vaccine first doses, the data shows. Some 9.5% of those vaccinated are listed as "other." (Jordan Shamus, 2/23)

PBS NewsHour: Why Indigenous People In Cities Feel ‘Invisible’ As Pandemic Wears On
Like many other communities of color, Indigenous people across America have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus because of historical health disparities, lack of basic resources in some parts of the country and poorly funded Indigenous health care. Navajo Nation, the largest American tribe with more than 300,000 members, has been devastated by loss. As of February 21, at least 1,144 Navajo people have died from the virus. Centers for Disease Control race data from December in 14 states show COVID-19 mortality among American Indians/Alaska natives was 1.8 times higher than white people. In another study of data from 23 states last summer, American Indians/Alaska Natives tested positive for COVID-19 three and a half times the rate white people tested positive. (Kuhn, 2/23)

In related news about race and health —

Capital & Main: The American Way Of Death: Separate And Unequal 
Federal researchers had braced themselves for the result. In a year ravaged by hundreds of thousands of deaths related to COVID-19, it stood to reason that the average life expectancy in the United States, a basic measure of the nation’s collective health, would drop. It was unusual, but not unprecedented. Instead, researchers were staggered by what they found. Life expectancy in the U.S. decreased by a full year during the first half of 2020 alone, their report said — the largest such setback since World War II, and one of the clearest signs yet of the havoc the virus has wrought on the country. (Kreidler, 2/23)

North Carolina Health News: Black Health A Casualty Of NC’s Journey From Plantation To Prison 
In North Carolina, the relationship between slavery and incarceration is clear and direct. Even with the end of slavery in the late-1800s, many Southern states retained economies based on labor-intensive agricultural products, but without the free labor that had supported those economies. As in many states, North Carolina turned to incarcerated populations to fill that gap. (Kelley, Saunders and Wolf, 2/23)