COVID vaccination rates lag among Washington’s non-white communities, report says
The Washington Department of Health found some racial and ethnic groups have received the COVID-19 vaccine at disproportionate rates, a new report says.
The department released the report, titled COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage by Race and Ethnicity and Age in Washington State, on Wednesday. It showed “low percentages of Hispanic, Black and Multiracial people have received COVID-19 vaccine when compared to those groups’ proportion of the state population,” a news release from the department said.
“These data are crucial to understanding how we must balance the need to vaccinate as many Washingtonians as quickly as possible while also promoting equity in the process,” Dr. Umair Shah, the state’s secretary of health, said in the release. “While we have been focusing on both throughout, we must all do more to address these COVID-19 vaccine inequities and related access barriers.”
Report findings by race/ethnicity
The report breaks down the total population of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine or have been fully vaccinated into the following race/ethnicity groups:
Hispanic
Non-Hispanic White
Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native
Non-Hispanic Asian
Non-Hispanic Black
Non-Hispanic Multiracial
Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
Non-Hispanic Other Race
The racial groups are based on categories in the Washington Immunization Information System.
Non-Hispanic white people make up about 67% of Washington’s total population, according to the report. Vaccination coverage has been proportional to that population, with 66% of those initiating vaccination and nearly 66% of those who are fully vaccinated being non-Hispanic whites, Kristin Maki, a spokesperson for the department of health, told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
Vaccination coverage among the Hispanic group is the most disproportionate, according to the report. While that group makes up 13% of the total population in Washington, Hispanics account for only 4% of people who have initiated vaccination and about 6% of those who have been fully vaccinated, the report shows.
Non-Hispanic Black and Non-Hispanic multiracial groups are also underrepresented compared to the population overall in both initiating vaccination and getting fully vaccinated, the report says. Black people made up 2.2% of those who got at least one dose and 2.7% of people who are fully vaccinated, which is “lower than Black representation in the state population (3.91%),” the release said.
People who identified as non-Hispanic Multiracial represent about 4% of the population, but they make up less than 1% of both the fully vaccinated and initiated vaccination categories, according to the report.
The report found that Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Natives “made up a slightly larger share, compared to their representation in the population” when it came to initiating vaccination, and they were “slightly overrepresented” in the fully vaccinated category. While the group represents 1.2% of the population, they make up 2.2% of people who have gotten at least one dose and nearly 3% of those who are fully vaccinated, according to the report.
The non-Hispanic Asian group was also overrepresented; while the group makes up 9% of Washington’s population, 11.2% of people who are fully vaccinated and 8.3% of people who have received at least one dose belong to that category, the report shows.
Findings based on age
Age groups were broken into categories of 0 to 19; 20 to 34; 35 to 49; 50 to 64; and 65 and older.
People over the age of 65 made up the highest percentage of people with at least one dose (30%), the release said. Vaccination coverage decreases gradually by age group, with people 50 to 64 at 10%; 35 to 49 at 8%; and 20 to 34 at 6%, according to the report.
People 65 or older had the lowest percentage of any age group that was fully vaccinated (2.3%), the report shows. People 35 to 49 had the highest percentage (4.4%), followed by 50- to 64-year-olds (3.9%) and 20- to 34- year-olds (3%), according to the report.
People between the ages of zero and 19 made up less than 1% in both initiated and completed vaccinations.
Race and ethnicity data was not available for about 11% of people who have received at least one dose and nearly 10% of people who are fully vaccinated, according to the report.
What’s going on?
“We need to integrate a more pro-equity approach in the way we allocate vaccines and distribute vaccines,” Paj Nandi, the director of community relations and equity for the Department of Health, said in a media briefing Wednesday. “There are so many access barriers that we’ve been hearing about from community leaders and partners over and over again.”
Some of those barriers include language access, access to technology, transportation accessibility, etc., Nandi said.
Nandi also suggested prioritizing vaccine allocation to providers who serve disproportionately impacted communities.
COVID-19 vaccines in Washington
Washington launched a phased approach to distributing the vaccine to residents. It was in phase 1a before Jan. 22, during which the vaccine was available to:
High-risk workers in health care settings
High-risk first responders
Residents and staff of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other community-based, congregate living settings where most individuals are over 65 years of age receiving care, supervision or assistance
All other workers in health care settings are prioritized in tier 2 of phase 1A
After Jan. 22, the state moved into tier 1 of Phase 1b, which expanded availability to all people 65 years and older and those 50 years and older in multigenerational households.
More than 940,000 doses have been given throughout the state as of Saturday, which is almost 80% of the nearly 1.2 million doses delivered to providers and long-term care programs, according to a news release from the Department of Health. The state is currently giving an average of 26,857 vaccine doses a day, the release said.
The department forecasts that 242,360 doses will have been given by the week of Feb. 28, according to the release.
The Washington Department of Health has reported 309,673 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,633 deaths as of Thursday.
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 5:19 PM with the headline "COVID vaccination rates lag among Washington’s non-white communities, report says."