Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged on Sunday that state and local health officials stumbled on the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine equitably among black and Latino communities in California.
Speaking at a mobile vaccination clinic in Inglewood, Newsom said the state needs to “do more and better” to provide outreach and establish vaccination sites directly in communities that have been hardest hit by the virus.
“We are not doing enough. We need to do a lot more programs like this, ”he said. “We need to get people back to work. We have to get people back to the church. And we have to get people back to school. “
Of the 7.3 million doses administered in California, 2.9% were for black residents, 16% for Latinos and 13% for Americans of Asian origin, compared with 32.7% for whites, according to state data.
These disparities are reflected to some degree in LA County, where 24% of black residents aged 65 and over received at least one dose of the vaccine, with elderly Latinos with 29% and elderly Asian Americans with 39%, compared with 43 % among elderly whites, according to county public health data.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 death rate for Latinos is triple that of white people in the county, with a daily rate of 48 deaths per 100,000 residents compared to 16 deaths per 100,000 residents for white people, according to county data. mid-January. Black residents were dying at a rate of 23 deaths per 100,000 people.
Newsom, which faces a recall campaign with nearly 1.1 million signatures, sought to illuminate the state’s efforts to vaccinate “hard to reach” and “disproportionately impacted” communities by visiting two locations on Sunday, including one in Inglewood and another in Boyle Heights.
“We recognize our responsibility to do more,” he said, commenting on a series of initiatives in which his office is involved across the state. “We are focusing on rural workers. We are at Coachella Valley in a collaborative capital coalition focused on rural workers and pop-up sites in partnership with farmers and farm managers. “
LA’s Eastside, which is predominantly Latin, has one of the highest rates of coronavirus infection in the county. Inglewood also noted a high rate of cases among its predominantly Latin and black population, with 1 in 9 infected residents, according to county public health data.
Only about 250 people were scheduled to be vaccinated on Sunday at each of the mobile clinics visited by Newsom, located at the Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood and the Ramona Gardens Recreation Center in Boyle Heights. The doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine came directly from the federal government as part of the allocation for the mass vaccination site in the state of Cal LA administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
There was a lot of demand at the Inglewood site, with about 70 people forced to wait on the waiting list due to the limited offer, said Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer of the Faithful Central Bible Church. He said those who were invited to set up a meeting included members of his church and the surrounding community aged 65 and over.
State Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) spoke at the event, saying the main barrier to vaccinating more people in the black community is lack of access, not fear of the vaccine.
“It’s a matter of awareness,” he said, noting that a recent vaccination clinic at Kedren Community Health Center, in southern Los Angeles, seemed to attract more people from outside the area than from the neighborhood.
“Three hundred people were in line. Five of them were African American. The people were from Rolling Hills, Beverly Hills. How did they spread the word? ” he said. “They seemed to know more than we did, so we have to do a better job of getting the word out.”
Newsom said that in terms of gross numbers, California has already exceeded the number of vaccinations administered in Israel, which has the highest vaccination rate in the world. But California still has a long way to go to improve its vaccination rate per capita, hampered by scarcity of supply from the federal government.
Strong winter storms in the United States have prevented the delivery of 702,000 doses of the Modern vaccine to California in recent days, Newsom said. These delays forced authorities to close several mass vaccination sites, including Disneyland and Dodger Stadium.
In Los Angeles, all six vaccination sites administered by the city, including Dodger Stadium, will resume operations on Tuesday, according to the mayor’s office.