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NY Scrambles To Ensure COVID Vaccine Rollout Doesn't Leave Behind Black And Brown Communities
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 23, 2020
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EDUARDO MUNOZ/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 23, 2020
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When COVID-19 spread throughout NYC earlier this year, communities of color across the board suffered the most.
City data shows Hispanic/Latino and Black people died at about twice the rate of white people.
Though Asians and Pacific-Islanders appeared to have the lowest death rates, a study disaggregating data about Asian American COVID-19 patients found Chinese New Yorkers had a mortality rate of 35.7%, higher than all Asian Americans, 25.5%, and Black New Yorkers, 23.7%.
The city notes data for non-hospitalized coronavirus cases is limited, and the health inequities are the accumulation of centuries of structural racism.
“It did peel back the onion ... on health disparities that we’ve been talking about,” said civil rights activist and president of the NAACP’s New York State Conference, Hazel Dukes.
Now, with the vaccine phase of the pandemic underway, health leaders, racial justice advocates, and government officials are looking ahead to try to preempt racial disparities in the vaccine rollout once it expands to future phases. High rates of hesitancy among people of color—the highest among Black New Yorkers—are drawing particular concern.
“I must say, all hands are on deck,” Dukes said. “The more education that we do and get it out, not as fake news but with scientists...it’s going to make a world of difference to our community.”
Dukes is on an equity task force convened by Governor Andrew Cuomo and another with Black community leaders who joined forces to start figuring out how to make sure information about the vaccine is reaching underserved communities.
Pandemic-era restrictions have forced some of those efforts online.
“Most of our institutions are closed, like our churches, where most of our seniors get their information from,” Dukes said. “We're going to have to work with our ministers who are doing Zoom and [streaming] their services.”
A virtual forum held by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer Monday night hosted doctors and public health experts who spoke about how the vaccine trials worked and other virus concerns, Dukes noted.
“Some people are upset,” Dukes said. They ask her, “‘Why did we do this so fast?’”
Though recent nationwide polling shows vaccine hesitancy has waned across racial groups in recent months, a November Siena poll of voters across New York state showed just 62%—about six in 10—Black New Yorkers said they would definitely or likely get the vaccine, followed by 65% of Latinos and 72% of white people. City health officials have said an October survey showed all non-white people, including Asians, are less willing to get a vaccine than white people.
A city ad campaign on social media, news media, and subway stations is ramping up in 16 languages to reach a range of racial and ethnic groups, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.
Public housing complexes will host free vaccine sites, like they did for test sites.
“How can we move the needle? It's really empowering individuals to take better control of their health overall,” said Dr. Torian Easterling, the chief equity officer at the NYC Health Department. He's working to make scientific information about the vaccine digestible and getting questions about it answered.
Virtual informational town halls will target 27 neighborhoods and a training model would be distributed to “trusted messengers” to host their own information sessions.
“The fear, the distrust is real,” said Jennifer Jones Austin, a member of the independently formed task force with Dukes and the CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.
Some health experts and advocates point to the challenges arising from medical abuses in American history. The Tuskegee trials, in which treatment was withheld from Black men with syphilis under the guise of research, eroded trust and resulted in long-lasting public health impacts. Another example includes U.S. government-led experiments in Latin America, and one expert previously told us she worries that the fear of continued historic patterns could reinforce vaccine hesitancy.
Racial disparities persist today. Indigenous, Hispanic, and Black women are more likely to be mistreated during childbirth. Latino/Hispanic and Black men have 3.4 and 5 times the rate, respectively, of new HIV diagnoses compared to white men in NYC, data released this month shows.
And a Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted last summer found 22% of Black adults and 18% of Hispanic adults had an instance in the past three years in which they did not believe a doctor or healthcare provider was telling the truth. The rate was 17% for white adults.
Immigration rules called “public charge” under the Trump administration have prompted some undocumented immigrants to avoid healthcare, which is seeping into vaccine programs. NYC’s public hospitals have encouraged people to seek care regardless of their status with guidance on the rules.
“We want to make sure that individuals who have reason to fear government, and reason to fear medicine, do not take themselves out of the vaccine game without having the knowledge to make an informed decision," Jones Austin said.
To expand access to the vaccine itself, state health officials will distribute vaccine kits with supplies to set up a distribution site—with items from room dividers and chairs to PPE and syringes.
Governor Andrew Cuomo's Office
“We’ll have these [kits] ready to then work with community groups, churches, housing authorities, so we can just send it to those places,” Cuomo said during a press conference Monday. “It’s a foot race between increasing vaccines and slowing the spread.”
The undertaking is reminiscent of just months ago when coronavirus testing was once difficult to obtain. In early March, the governor set a benchmark of 1,000 tests a day. Now, the state conducts more than 200,000 tests everyday.
The SOMOS Network has been testing for COVID-19 at community health sites across the city and more recently helping the city education department test students. SOMOS chairman Dr. Ramon Tallaj wants the group of 2,000+ doctors to help with vaccinations too.
“The trust is not there because they don’t want anybody else but their community doctor to do so,” Tallaj said. “We are culturally and linguistically competent. We speak the languages. We are in the neighborhood.”
Tallaj wants to obtain four ultra-cold fridges to store Pfizer vaccines at negative 94 degrees Fahreinheit, so the two-shot vaccine can be brought to places besides major hospitals or nursing homes.
“They must integrate the primary care, the community doctors to do the vaccination for the community at-large.”
Tagged
COVID-19
coronavirus
racism
Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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