States have considered an important component to their vaccine plans “racial equity” but equity isn’t exactly what is being rolled out.
Here’s the scoop for the Daily Mail:
“Every US state has been advised to consider ethnic minorities as a critical and vulnerable group in their vaccine distribution plans, according to Centers for Disease Control guidance.
As a result, half of the nation’s states have outlined plans that now prioritize black, Hispanic and indigneous residents over white people in some way, as the vaccine rollout begins.”
States that have outlined these plans are as follows: California, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Equity as defined by Oxford is “the quality of being fair and impartial.” Prioritizing certain groups over others on the basis of race is not exactly fair or impartial.
Perhaps some racial minorities contract the virus at a higher rate. However the common denominator is likely not their race, but their economic stance. As we know blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately in poverty as compared to whites and this likely contributes a higher likelihood of becoming sick unfortunately. So rather than prioritize people based on their skin color, would it not make more sense to prioritize those in poverty regardless of their race?
Many of these states like Michigan for example site the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index as their guidance for such a decision. But oddly enough, the index does not outline race as one of its key factors that determine social vulnerability.
Poverty however, is the first factor listed:
“CDC SVI ranks each tract on 15 social factors, including poverty, lack of vehicle access, and crowded housing, and groups them into four related themes.”
This seems to be a difficult concept for our leaders to grasp.
The Daily Mail adds:
“According to our analysis, 25 states have committed to a focus on racial and ethnic communities as they decided which groups should be prioritized in receiving a coronavirus vaccine dose.”
Some states have taken it a step further and specified that they will prioritize communities that are predominately racial minorities. This is happening in 12 states.
The same logic applies, rather than target minority communities why would these states not target impoverished communities in general? Despite these facts several states have already decided that racial minorities will be the next priority groups to receive the vaccination.
