The recent story in The Dallas Morning News was clear and disturbing:
”COVID vaccines at Fair Park aren’t going to Black, Latino residents as officials hoped” [1]
The story chronicles the missteps in public communications efforts to schedule large-scale
vaccinations to historically disenfranchised neighborhoods, which are mostly
Black and Latino and below Interstate 30 – groups that have experienced a
higher number of illnesses, hospitalizations and mortalities during the pandemic.
Instead, however, the thousands of
residents that showed up for the vaccinations at Fair Park were mostly white
North Texans from higher-income neighborhoods following mixed messages to the
public – many showing up in their Mercedes, Infiniti and BMW automobiles.
Dallas City Mayor Eric Johnson blamed County Judge Clay Jenkins
for the confusion generated by the announcement to register online with the county
to receive a vaccine appointment at the South Dallas Mega Center – an announcement
that was apparently not coordinated with the Mayor’s office. Word of mouth spread
rapidly that an appointment was not needed for residents 75 and older – which left
thousands of others on a waiting list and encouraged many out-of-town residents
to show up for a vaccine. County officials
pointed out that a significant number of residents who showed up were able to access
an unsecured web link that allowed them to book an appointment, regardless of
age or status. Other residents who
showed up also pointed to emails received from the county encouraging them to
sign up for an appointment.
Interestingly, Dallas County was not prepared to release a demographic
profile of those that received vaccinations, a report that would have been very
useful in evaluating the extent of the exclusion of more deserving Black and
Hispanic residents in the targeted community.
As an apparent after-thought to expand access to the intended Black and
Hispanic residents, Jenkins and his staff
began reaching out to leaders in those communities, including elected
officials, faith leaders and other organizations that work in communities where
the coronavirus was most prevalent.
The vaccine distribution fiasco in Dallas County is not an
isolated one as many communities throughout the U.S. are struggling to
coordinate the vaccinations using a confusing set of federal guidelines that
are implemented inconsistently thoughout the nation. In a previous blogpost, I had warned about potential
problems that could complicate the distribution of the vaccines once they became
available. For example:
·
The Center for Disease Control decided to
exclude Blacks and Hispanics from the category of “high-risk” groups, thus reducing
their priority level for intervention strategies. Why? Because the CDC concluded that the high virus
rates are not due to genetics, and they want to avoid stigmatizing these groups
as “COVID carriers.” [2]
·
Race-ethnic information is missing for many of
the cases, hospitalizations and mortalities recorded for COVID-19, which
obscures the accurate reporting of this information for Black and Hispanic communities
– a consequence of lax mandates for recording race-ethnic information. The
absence of this information obscures the true picture of community spread of
the virus. [3]
· Access to testing sites in states like Texas is problematic since these sites are more commonly located in white communities than the more vulnerable Black and Hispanic communities. [4]
It is also disturbing to learn that states like Florida have
relaxed the requirements for vaccine eligibility by allowing anyone over the
age of 65 years to obtain a vaccine, which has encouraged many tourists and
out-of-town residents to drain the vaccine supplies at the expense of more
deserving local residents.
In the case of Dallas County and the City of Dallas, it was unfortunate
that better coordination was not in place to implement such an important vaccine
intervention program at the Fair Park Mega Center. However, even if the communications had been
better coordinated, there is still one important tactical decision that could
have produced a different outcome.
In my opinion, it was a major mistake to rely primarily on a
web-based strategy to encourage Black and Latino residents in the targeted
communities to register for the Mega Center vaccination. From their recent
experience to encourage response rates to the Census 2020, both Dallas County
and City of Dallas officials were aware that Black and Latino residents,
especially immigrants, were excluded in large numbers from completing the
Census questionnaire which also primarily relied on the Internet. Our past research in multicultural
communities confirms that Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to respond by
telephone, mail and personal contacts when completing surveys and Census questionnaires
but least likely to respond by using the Internet. Lastly, a Census population
pyramid easily illustrates that a much larger proportion of whites are concentrated
in ages 65 and older than Hispanics or Blacks – which would provide whites a
distinct advantage when using eligibility criteria based on age alone.
For damage control, Jenkins reportedly began outreach to
community elected officials, faith leaders and other organizations in the targeted
zip codes – an approach that should have been followed initially. Whether by intent
or just careless decision-making, Mr. Johnson was correct in stating that the
county was “promoting a system that gave preferential treatment” – that is, to
white, higher-income residents who were not the intended target audience of the
Mega Center.
With COVID-19 vaccinations, there is less room for error in the
fair distribution of a life-saving solution. Let’s hope that public officials agree to improve
the coordination of public vaccination campaigns by improving their
communication strategies in culturally diverse communities.
[1]
Garcia, N. and Bailey, E. (2021, January 14). COVID vaccines at Fair Park aren’t
going to Black, Latino residents as hoped.
The Dallas Morning News. Accessed
at: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2021/01/14/dallas-mayor-eric-johnson-blasts-county-after-walkups-allowed-at-covid-19-vaccine-mega-site/
[2] Rincon,
E.T. (2020, July 30) CDC blunders in excluding communities of color among high risk
groups for COVID-19. https://thecultureofresearch.blogspot.com/2020/07/cdc-blunders-in-excluding-communities.html
[3] Rincon,
E.T. (2020, April 16). Missing race-ethnicity data complicates COVID-19 mortality
counts, but the solution is simple. Accessed at: https://thecultureofresearch.blogspot.com/2020/04/missing-race-ethnicity-data-complicates.html
[4]
Fanning, R. (2020, May 29). Across Texas, black and Hispanic neighborhoods have
fewer coronavirus testing sites. Texas Standard. Accessed at: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/across-texas-black-and-hispanic-neighborhoods-have-fewer-coronavirus-testing-sites/
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