Why do you think Black people are receiving fewer vaccine doses than other races?

Systemic racism could play a role?

Still scared of Trump and the conservatives. And ^^^^^^^^ !

Several reasons. The initial roll out in most states were hospitals and healthcare facilities, which I think are dominated by white people.

Then the roll out was only in a few locations in each county and the locations were not in many urban centers but rather you had to be able to drive to them, so the poor and people who could not drive couldn’t access those locations.

Many states require appointments for shots and the poor and other minorities are less likely to have all the information to make the appointments or the internet.

There is some reluctance to get vaccinated among minority communities at least for now. Some wanted to wait and see.

I was just looking at this in my state. See page 2 https://www.floridadisaster.org/globalassets/covid19/vaccine-info/2021feb/vaccine_report_20210226.pdf for vaccinations distribution by race in FL. There have been some irregularities in our vaccine reporting, I’ve been following it closely and the number of first doses was being recorded incorrectly initially from what I can tell, but I don’t have reason to think the demographics are recorded incorrectly except to say with do have a lot of “mixed race” in the state. A misnomer, but I’ll use it for simplicity.

The document shows 6.3% of the people vaccinated first dose are Black if my math is right. The Black population in FL is close to a 16% population. There is an “other” and unknown category that is very large combined, so I think the Black number is likely underreported, but still should not be ignored.

I read recently FEMA will have two mobile units in Florida to vaccinate in “underserved communities.”

Initially giving contracts to Walgreens and CVS to vaccinate in long term care might have inadvertently hurt minority/poor communities since drug stores are in multiple locations all over cities and more easily accessible. Although, I do think the first month it was prudent not to vaccinate in pharmacies and grocery stores.

Edit: one other possible reason is Black life expectancy is shorter than White people and a lot of states started with 75 and up for eligibility

@JLeslie Thanks for a GREAT answer. None of the factors you listed reflected the predominant feeling of ‘systemic racism’, Thank God.

@crazyguy Not focusing on poor and Black areas is a problem and in some areas possibly is racism at a minimum discrimination. The government is supposed to be aware of the situation and limitations of all the residents and help those who need the most help.

As far as I know, there is no place where an appointment for a vaccine can be made by phone. It has to be done ON-LINE. Lots of people either don’t have computers, or don’t have fast internet connections, or don’t want to go long distances or wait in long lines to (hopefully) get a vaccine.
Too bad the government don’t set up shot centers in the same places they have for voters/voting.

We have appointments by phone in my county, and people are using it where I live and getting appointments, but initially it was hard to get through, it’s much better now. The location for the appointment requires having a car, it’s at a small suburban mall. I heard rumblings about free rides for vaccines, but I don’t think we have that yet.

They tried phone appointments in my county crashed the entire county phone system, updated and revamped system now you get “beep – beep – beep’ when you call the Health Department.

Black people are four times more likely in my area not to have internet and computers.

@Tropical_Willie That happened here initially, but now that the websites are working better and there are many more ways and places to get the vaccine, now getting through on the phone isn’t as difficult. The websites have been hard for many of our older citizens so they call or do the first come first serve locations if they can drive. Or, their friends or children book the appointments.

I do give credit to the counties and state for sticking with some formats that initially were a fiasco and received harsh criticism, because it did get smoother over time.

Edit: maybe FEMA will do mobile units fir your state too. I don’t know if that was a FEMA idea or a Florida idea. We had a mobile testing bus also.

In many states, inoculation centers have been at medical facilities, which means that poor people, who have historical difficulty getting access to health care, aren’t getting vaccinated.

There is also distrust of “government medical programs” after so many injustices involving Black communities.

Why are you so disturbed by an explanation of systemic racism if black folks are at the short end of every other statistic? They are the sickest, least likely to be insured, have less access to adequate medical facilities, more likely to be impoverished, over represented and concentrated in environments inducing the virus, and justifiably suspicious of the medical community in regards to its treatment of black people. At what point might one conclude that all of these are simply matters of coincidence?

@JLeslie “racism at a minimum discrimination”. GIVE ME A BREAK!

@crazyguy You don’t think it is discrimination to ignore a group of people, like say the poor who might need more help and attention?

@zenvelo You mean like Disneyland?

^^^^ @crazyguy Just because pot is legal in California, it doesn’t make your responses sensible. What the hell are you on?

@zenvelo Believe it or not, Disneyland was a mass vaccination site in Southern California.

@JLeslie I believe part of the $1.9 trillion could be used to give UBER coupons to poor people as long as they use the coupons only for getting their vaccinations.

@crazyguy I would rather a mobile unit going to poor neighborhoods. Being in a car isn’t very safe. Small space.

@JLeslie That is reasonable. Do you know if there are any specifics about that in the 600-odd page bill?

@crazyguy I have no idea. I know in Florida I have heard DeSantis talk about it, and I think I heard someone talking about FEMA doing it, but I have yet to see any specific information about it. I want them to come to where I live with a mobile FEMA unit. We have 70 year olds driving across two counties for an hour each way to Orlando every day to get vaccinated. It is ridiculous. They said on the local news today that Orlando convention center can do 3,000 shots a day and they are doing 1,000 lately! So, DeSantis lowered the age to 60 starting this coming Monday, BUT that does not help the over 65 year old people up where I live who still are winding up travelling across counties! So frustrating. Not to mention over 65 year olds who literally cannot drive. Supposedly, they were supposed to come to the houses of homebound people, but I have yet to see that actually happening.