Robert Besser
28 Feb 2021, 17 GMT+10
WASHINGTON, DC: While 11.3 percent of white Americans and 10.5 percent of Asian-Americans have received Covid vaccinations, only 4.6 percent of Latinos and 5.7 percent of Blacks have yet to be vaccinated.
If Latinos and Blacks are not receiving vaccinations, the consequences could be troubling for public health. For pockets of high transmission could harm efforts to be free of the virus, according to Dr Kathleen Page, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
"It's not just about equity; even if we want to be selfish, it doesn't make sense, as we'll continue to see high transmission hotspots across the country, and that's where new variants will emerge," Page said, as quoted in The Guardian.
"The inequity we see is not just about vaccine hesitancy that's just an excuse to blame the victims. It's about very real obstacles and our broad-stroke approach to priority groups, which means high-risk people in Latino and Black communities who don't meet the criteria," Page said.
It was noted that white populations in America are much older than other ethnic groups, and the elderly have been prioritized by every state.
At the same time, statistics can be confusing.
Pacific Islanders, at 16.3 percent, have the nation's highest rate of inoculations. This is followed by Native Americans, at 12.8 percent.
Of note, the rate of distributing vaccinations has increased since Joe Biden took office, and officials say some 1.6 million doses are being administered every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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