COVID racial disparities are stark

Today's Managing Health Care Costs Number is 92

This week Martin Luther King would have been 92. In his lifetime, King emphasized the importance of health care access and equality.  While we’ve come a long way from segregated hospitals, racial disparities continue to loom large.  

Here are four graphics which show how this is relevant to COVID, and to COVID vaccination.

1.  COVID death rates among Black and Hispanics remain substantially higher than the overall population:

Source: COVID Tracking Project

2.  Kaiser Family Foundation reports that acceptance of vaccines has increased in all groups, although still lags among Blacks.

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation LINK

3.  Vaccine inequity: Data from all states reporting race show that the portion of Blacks who are vaccinated significantly lags the portion who are eligible health care workers.

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation LINK

4.  Vaccine distribution is inversely proportional to poverty and to Black portion of population:  Washington, DC as an illustrative example

Sources: Alex Taliadoros, Brian Robinson, Nichlas Finnio.  LINK

Disparities don’t disappear quickly -but we will only resolve this unfairness and the unnecessary loss of life and health if we recognize the problem.  It’s heartening that Joe Biden, being inaugurated today, has appointed Marcia Nunez-Smith, a noted clinician and researcher, as the “first-ever presidential adviser with a sole focus on combating racism and racial disparities in health care.”  It’s dispiriting that these disparities remain so severe.