U.S. eyes Tuesday deliveries of J&J vaccine; urges minorities to get
shots
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[March 01, 2021]
By Andrea Shalal and Julia Harte
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Initial deliveries
of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine should start on
Tuesday, senior Biden administration officials said on Sunday, saying
they hoped to boost lagging vaccination rates among minorities.
The officials acknowledged that vaccination rates among Black and brown
Americans were "not where we ultimately want them to be", but said
measures had been put in place to boost those numbers, and sought to
assure minorities that the vaccines were safe. Federal officials were
also closely monitoring distribution to ensure it was equitable, they
said.
"Even though we know the data are not complete, we do see these early
patterns that suggest Black and brown Americans largely are getting
vaccinated at rates lower than the representation in the general
population," said one of the officials.
The officials gave no data on the disparities, but KFF, a health policy
and research organization, has found that people of color are getting
smaller shares of vaccinations as compared to their share of the
population. In Alabama, for instance, Black people account for 27% of
the population and 31% of the deaths from COVID-19, but only 17% of the
vaccinations.
The U.S. officials said they respected the concerns raised by some Black
Americans given a history of past disparities and "egregiously unethical
conduct", including the Tuskegee study in Macon County, Alabama, in
which federal health officials denied black men treatment to study
syphilis from 1932 to 1972.
But they underscored the importance of everyone who was eligible to get
vaccinated as soon as possible, to get control of the pandemic, and said
great efforts had been made to ensure that Black and brown people were
adequately represented at every stage of the vaccine process.
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Vials of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
vaccine candidate are seen in an undated photograph. Johnson &
Johnson/Handout via REUTERS.
"It is critical for people to understand the safeguards that are in
place around this clinical research, but also the diversity and
representation at the level of the scientist, at the level of the
policymakers and those who are reviewing these data, as well as the
clinical trial participants," said one of the officials.
Up to 400 community vaccination centers were being put into areas
with large minority population, and officials would use mobile units
to reach more people, they said, adding that flexible hours of
operation also would be critical.
"We have directed states to manage distribution of all (three)
vaccines in a fair and equitable way, and we will continue to
monitor that closely," a second official said.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine involves only one shot, not two, and
may be easier to distribute since it does not require a freezer, but
federal officials said all three vaccines should be made available
evenly across communities and the country.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Julia Harte; Editing by Daniel
Wallis and Diane Craft)
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