Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Monday that the Biden government will invest $ 250 million in federal grants to community organizations working to address the gaps in the response to COVID-19.
In comments to the National League of Cities, Harris announced the funding, which is aimed at organizations that are encouraging underprivileged and minority populations to obtain COVID-19 vaccines and adopt safety practices to help them avoid contracting the virus.
The initiative, called Advancing Health Literacy to Improve Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19, will be administered by the Minority Health Office of the Department of Health and Human Services and will provide grants to locations that partner with community organizations. The HHS official said the plan was designed to help local governments increase their efforts around COVID-19 testing, contact tracking and other mitigation measures, while establishing partnerships with organizations that best know how to support. their communities.
In his comments, Harris encouraged members of the National League of Cities – an organization consisting of thousands of cities, towns and village leaders – to embrace the plan.
Harris is already trying to reduce vaccination disparities stemming from racial, cultural and socioeconomic issues, some of which are caused by mistrust of the vaccine among minorities and rural Americans. In December, Harris received his first dose of the Moderna vaccine at the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington, DC, a hospital that provides services to mostly black residents in the DC area with lower middle income.
The White House and other federal agencies conducted listening sessions with various groups with a focus on increasing confidence in the vaccine and treating other barriers. When she was still a California senator, Harris introduced the COVID-19 Race and Ethnic Disparities Task Force Act 2020.
“Our communities are dying at disproportionately high rates.” Harris said in February at a virtual roundtable with participants from local black chambers of commerce across the country. “We need to remind people that vaccines are safe, that they will save lives.”
According to the most recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 35 states, the vaccination rate among white Americans was 2.5 times higher than the rate for Hispanics and almost twice as high as the rate for blacks. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that more than 55 million Americans had received one or more doses of the vaccine. Mistrust of the vaccine among some white Americans in rural communities has also been a growing problem in the vaccination process.
Among the concerns that Biden government officials have raised about closing racial loopholes is the scarcity of data.
“We also ask the states to help us obtain the data we need to know where we are and work with us to find creative solutions for the uneven absorption of the vaccine that has already emerged in these first months of the vaccination program,” he said. White House COVID-19 Health and Equity Task Force Chair Marcella Nunez-Smith said on Monday. “I just want to make it clear that achieving equity is not an aspirational goal. This is a critical mission. Without equity, we will not be able to prevent this pandemic from continuing to take lives, overburden our health care system and weaken our economy.”
An HHS official told CBS News that the initiative is expected to fund about 20 projects in urban communities and 43 projects in rural communities for two years. The HHS Office of Minority Health will accept applications for its new initiative until April 20.