The role that the race should play in deciding who has priority for the Covid-19 vaccine in the next phase of the launch is being put to the test in Oregon, as tensions around equity and access to vaccines emerge across the country. parents, reports Gillian Flaccus to the Associated Press.
An advisory committee that provides recommendations to the Oregon governor and public health officials will vote later today on whether to prioritize people of color, target those with chronic medical conditions or focus on some combination of groups at higher risk for coronavirus. Others, such as essential workers, refugees, prisoners and those under 65 who live in groups, are also being considered.
The 27-member committee in Oregon, a Democratic-led and predominantly white state, was formed with the goal of keeping justice at the heart of its vaccine distribution. Its members were selected to include racial minorities and ethnic groups, from Somali refugees to Pacific islands and tribes. The committee’s recommendations are not binding, but they provide a critical contribution to Governor Kate Brown and guide health officials in preparing the launch.
“It is about revealing the structural racism that remains hidden. This influences the disparities we experienced before the pandemic and exacerbated the disparities we experienced during the pandemic, ”said Kelly Gonzales, a member of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma and a specialist in health disparities on the committee.
The virus disproportionately affected black people. Last week, the Biden government again emphasized the importance of including “social vulnerability” in state vaccination plans with race, ethnicity and rural-urban division at the forefront and asked states to identify “pharmacy deserts” where it would be difficult get vaccines.
Overall, 18 states included ways to measure equity in their original vaccine distribution plans last fall and have most likely done so since vaccines started arriving, said Harald Schmidt, a medical ethics expert at the University of Pennsylvania who studied the impartiality of the vaccine extensively.
Some, like Tennessee, have proposed to allocate 5% of their allocation to “areas of high disadvantage”, while states like Ohio plan to use social vulnerability factors to decide where to distribute the vaccine, he said.
Attempts to address inequalities in access to vaccines have already generated reactions in some places. Dallas officials recently reversed a decision to prioritize the most vulnerable postal codes, especially communities of color, after Texas threatened to cut the city’s vaccine supply. This type of resistance tends to become more pronounced as states deepen their implementation and grapple with difficult questions about the need and lack of supply.
To avoid legal challenges, almost all states that consider race and ethnicity in their vaccine plans are turning to a tool called the “social vulnerability index” or “handicap index”. This index includes more than a dozen data points, education income, health outcomes and car ownership to target disadvantaged populations, without specifically mentioning race or ethnicity.
“The point is not, ‘We want to make sure that the Obama family gets the vaccine before the Clinton family.’ We don’t care. Both can safely wait, ”he said. “We care that the person working in a refrigerator in a crowded situation understands first. It’s not about race, it’s about race and disadvantage. “