Should Black and Latino people get priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine?With the promise of a COVID-19 vaccine in the distant future and positive signs from a recent Moderna MRNA, 11.66% trial, public-health professionals are mulling which groups of people should get early doses. And some are weighing a controversial idea: moving people of color, whose communities have been disproportionately stricken by the disease, toward the front of the queue.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials and an outside advisory committee plotting an eventual vaccine rollout are considering bumping up certain groups for the first doses of an effective coronavirus vaccine, such as key national security officials, high-risk individuals and essential workers, according to a recent New York Times report. One option that has sparked some debate, the report said, is prioritizing Black and Latino Americans.
When asked who needed the vaccine after health-care workers, philanthropist Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft MSFT, -0.50% co-founder Bill Gates, floated a similar idea during a recent Time magazine interview. “In the U.S., that would be Black people next, quite honestly, and many other people of color. They are having disproportionate effects from COVID-19,†she said. From there, Gates said, she would prioritize people with underlying conditions, older people and essential workers.
Research shows that Black and Latino people bear a disproportionate share of COVID-19 illness and death in the U.S. People of color are also overrepresented in essential jobs that require them to work outside the home. They are more likely to have underlying health conditions that can lead to more severe cases of the coronavirus, less likely to have health insurance, and more likely to report experiencing discrimination within the health-care system............
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/should-black-and-latino-people-get-priority-access-to-a-covid-19-vaccine-2020-07-16
