Democratic lawmakers are calling on federal health officials to address racial disparity in vaccine access nationwide, as data from certain states show severely affected non-white Americans eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccines are not getting vaccinated in proportion to their share of the population, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
In a Thursday letter to the acting Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Norris Cochran IV, the legislators stated that the agency must work with states, municipalities and private labs to gather and publish vaccine recipients’ demographic data, according to the AP report.
SAVANNAH, GA – DECEMBER 15: A nurse shows off a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside of the Chatham County Health Department on December 15, 2020 in Savannah, Georgia. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was on hand to witness initial administering of vaccines in the state. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The letter, signed by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Democratic Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, stated that it is “critical that the Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and immigrant communities that have been most impacted by this virus and have been more likely to contract, be hospitalized, and die from the disease have access to the vaccine,” first reported by the AP.
A lack of transparency on who is getting vaccinated will only incite greater wariness of health officials, the legislators argued in the letter, the outlet reported.
The lawmakers added that without that information, legislators and health workers cannot efficiently identify vaccine discrepancy in the most strongly hit communities, according to the report. (RELATED: One-Dose Coronavirus Vaccine Trial Shows Positive Results, Company Says)
Black Americans are almost four times as likely to be hospitalized due to the coronavirus and almost three times as likely to die from COVID-19 compared to the white Americans, according to CDC statistics.