Since the beginning of the global pandemic in March 2020 people of color in the United States have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Black, Latine, and Indigenous people are 4 times as likely to go to the hospital for the disease than white people. Since the vaccine’s roll-out, it’s clear that the racialized impacts of COVID-19 have continued with its distribution.
“We cannot rely on this health care system to address equity. … We are only going to continue to fail. And we see that now with the vaccine distribution,” said Raul Ruiz, a representative physician in California.
About half of ethnic and racial information regarding vaccine distribution in the United States has been evaluated. Despite this, the statistics should still accurately reflect racial disparity. At its worst, data has shown in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Mississippi that white people are being vaccinated three times as much as Black people. Nationally, only 8 percent of vaccines have gone to Black recipients even though they make up 13 percent of the population. As for the Latine population, 8 percent of vaccinations have gone to them while making up 16-18% of the population.
This pattern continues locally. Missouri state officials claimed that equitable distribution was a priority, but the numbers put out by the state were using incorrect statistics derived from national totals. Melissa Robinson, executive director of Black Health Care Coalition stated in a KCUR piece that, “Knowing that the data was wrong and not the data that represents the local community and the state — that does raise concerns… And it deepens, unfortunately, the relationships of trust that we’re trying to rebuild.” New data, while still questionable, put the total number of vaccinations for Black people in Missouri at 10.2 percent opposed to 18.7 percent for white people.
The inequality surrounding the COVID vaccine seems inescapable across the United States, but why? Why is the issue so widespread? The answer is a mixture of institutionalized racism and class status. The inequitable socio-economic status of Black people in America is a lineage created by chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, the prison industrial complex that have left Black Americans economically disadvantaged. While many assume that slavery and segregation are things of the past, their modern implications can be seen in the present day.
For example, the prison industrial complex and criminal justice system disproportionately harm Black individuals. According to Dr. Connie Hassett-Walker, an Assistant Professor of Justice Studies and Sociology at Norwich University, many of the police forces in the United States started as slave patrols. After the abolition of slavery, they continued as a way to control freed Black Americans, immigrants, and other disadvantaged groups. The foundation of policing has had long-term implications for the ways Black Americans are treated by law enforcement. “In my opinion, these factors – controlling disorder, lack of adequate police training, lack of nonwhite officers and slave patrol origins – are among the forerunners of modern-day police brutality against African Americans,” she concludes.
The NAACP’s criminal justice fact sheet states that, “the criminal justice system is heavily impacted by the bias of police mentality, as well as outdated judicial precedents. It is largely driven by racial disparities, which directly obstruct and deconstruct our minority communities.” One-third of Black men have been charged with a felony and Black men are 6 times as likely to go to prison in their lifetime than white people. A criminal record makes it harder to find a job, thus forcing a lot of Black people into poverty or homelessness.
The cycle of poverty for Black people in America is also part of this lineage. A collection of data from the American Psychological Association found that 39 percent of Black children live in poverty compared to 14 percent of white children, and Black unemployment is double white unemployment. This is because when slavery was abolished, it continued illegally until the 1960s, and those who were free found it nearly impossible to navigate a country built upon racism. Low-paying jobs and denial of employment or services made it hard for Black Americans to climb the social ladder. Even though Black people are guaranteed equal rights under the law, poverty continues generationally which means today that many Black Americans do not have access to the same goods and services as white people. This fact is further proven by the proportions of vaccine distribution.
The way the vaccine works is “first come, first serve,” depending on the prioritization stage, meaning people with easy access to the internet and transportation are far more likely to receive the vaccine. Mass vaccination events in particular have issues with equity. While they provide vaccines to a large number of people, data has shown they often don’t include a lot of people of color. Mass vaccination sites are often less accessible by public transportation because they tend to be wealthier areas.
The racial disparity that pervades vaccine distribution is also impacted by other factors. For example, some Black people are skeptical of the health care system in general because of its failure to provide equal service in the past. The distribution also prioritizes older people, and the older generation is less racially and ethnically diverse than the rest of the population. Until the United States addresses this issue, people of color will continue to be disproportionately harmed and killed by the virus. In order to combat the myriad of systemic issues at play, vaccine distribution to people of color must be an intentional priority.
