Federal health officials said on Monday that the majority of people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine so far are women, but they have no data on the race or ethnicity of nearly half of the first nearly 13 million Americans to receive a COVID -19 vaccine.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a launch of its first comprehensive look at the state of the vaccination campaign across the country, claims that 63% of those vaccinated across the country were women and 55% had more than 50 years. The agency’s researchers released a pair of reports examining the demographics of people vaccinated across the country by January 14 and the distribution of vaccines in long-term care institutions.
Among the data that the CDC exam was able to gather on race and ethnicity, 60% of those vaccinated identified themselves as non-Hispanic whites.
The data is whiter, older and more feminine than the general population, although the CDC researchers have warned that the same has happened with the groups prioritized for the photos.
The reports come at a time when the Biden government is pleading with states to step up their efforts to report metrics.
“There are some reasons why we are already behind in this just a month and a half after the vaccine implementation started. The lack of previous federal coordination, the uneven implementation between states, inconsistent emphasis on equity in the first days of vaccination,” stated. Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chairman of the president’s equity task force COVID-19, said at a meeting on Monday.
“They don’t just hurt our statistics. They hurt communities that are most at risk and have been hardest hit,” added Nunez-Smith.
Less than half of the states publicly release race and ethnicity data on vaccinees, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation tracker.
The CDC report said that race and ethnicity reports vary widely across the country, with 14% reporting “multiple or other” race or ethnicity and six jurisdictions reporting none of this data.
Across the country, the CDC says that nearly 50 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed. More than 25 million received at least one injection, now almost double the number of Americans the researchers analyzed.
Public health experts have warned for months that vaccine data reporting requirements were missing a key metric to measure the progress of the immunization campaign in communities most affected by the pandemic, especially as the effort expands beyond health professionals. and nursing homes that were prioritized first.
In nursing homes, the CDC report said that about 78% of residents – and only 38% of team members – received an injection of Pfizer or Moderna doses by January 17.
State health officials have repeatedly expressed frustration with the launch of immunizations in long-term care facilities, which the CDC attributed in part to the vaccine’s hesitation and logistical challenges.
“Each vaccination clinic will go to the long-term care facility three times. And when they are returning for that second and third time, there are teams that are accepting the vaccine on the second and third visits, ”said Dr. Amanda Cohn at a CDC meeting last week.
“Continuing to capture employees who did not accept the vaccine early will be very important as we try to eliminate outbreaks and protect employees and residents in long-term care facilities,” he added. Dr. Cohn.