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The New York City’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus released the following statement in response to a report regarding the racial disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations in New York City:
“Almost one year and nineteen thousand lives removed from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the same neglect and lack of equity that proved disproportionately fatal to New Yorkers of color is now apparent at the stage most critical to determining the outcome of this crisis: vaccination.
“The vast racial disparities reflected in this latest data set demand that both the City and State reconfigure what has thus far been a disjointed local distribution plan so that it prioritizes, foremost, the members of our most vulnerable and hardest-hit communities of color.
“The State must give greater latitude to the City in utilizing the resources necessary to provide its limited supply of vaccines to those populations, and both must employ safeguards to ensure that the vaccinations administered from their stock are exclusive to residents of New York City as well as monitored in real-time through an online portal with the ability to track demographic data on the recipients.
“As highly contagious and vaccine resistant strains of coronavirus become increasingly prevalent throughout the country, we cannot afford continual errors in the distribution and administration of existing vaccines. Otherwise, an additionally disproportionate and deadlier toll suffered by our communities of color is guaranteed.”
