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By Andrea Shalal and Julia Harte
WASHINGTON, February 28 (Reuters) – Initial deliveries of Johnson & Johnson’s newly approved COVID-19 vaccine are due to start on Tuesday, Biden government officials said on Sunday, saying they hoped to increase late vaccination rates between minorities. Officials acknowledged that vaccination rates among black and brown Americans “were not where we wanted them to be,” but said measures were put in place to increase those numbers and sought to assure minorities that vaccines were safe. Federal officials also closely monitored the distribution to ensure it was equitable, they said. “Even though we know that the data is not complete, we see these initial patterns that suggest that black and brown Americans are being vaccinated at rates lower than the representation of the general population,” said one of the officials.
Officials did not provide data on the disparities, but KFF, a health research and policy organization, found that people of color are receiving smaller portions of vaccines compared to their share of the population. In Alabama, for example, blacks are responsible for 27% of the population and 31% of deaths from COVID-19, but only 17% of vaccinations.
US officials said they respect the concerns raised by some black Americans due to a history of past disparities and “extremely unethical conduct”, including the Tuskegee study in Macon County, Alabama, in which federal health officials denied treatment to black men for study syphilis from 1932 to 1972.
But they stressed the importance of all those eligible to be vaccinated as soon as possible, to get control of the pandemic, and said that great efforts were made to ensure that blacks and browns were adequately represented at all stages of the vaccination process.
“It is essential that people understand the safeguards that exist around this clinical research, but also the diversity and representation at the level of the scientist, at the level of policy makers and those who are reviewing this data, as well as the participants in clinical trials” said one of the employees.
Up to 400 community vaccination centers have been placed in areas with a large minority population, and officials would use mobile units to reach more people, they said, adding that flexible hours of operation would also be critical.
“We have instructed states to administer the distribution of all (three) vaccines in a fair and equitable manner and will continue to monitor this closely,” said a second official.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine involves only one injection, not two, and may be easier to distribute as it does not require a freezer, but federal officials said all three vaccines should be made available equally in communities and across the country. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Julia Harte; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)