Comparing races with inequities and different histories is clearly unfair. The fact is that education is a better predictor of who is vaccinated than race is. People who are near the poverty line can't afford to miss work. This makes it harder for them to get time to get vaccinated and concerned that side effects of the vaccine might require them to miss work . People who have endured medical inequities have much less reason to trust the medical establishment. When you add the evil of the Tuskegee experiment , it is easy to understand why the descendants of those who suffered through that would have a harder time trusting the federal government with their health. Put all of this together and you would expect an intransigent large gap to remain in who is vaccinated. It is amazing that the gap in who is vaccinated has nearly closed and more amazing that when you control for education, there is no gap or African Americans are slightly MORE likely to be vaccinated. A close examination of polling shows while African Americans were more hesitant to get vaccinated when you don't control for education, but the absolute refusers were more likely to be white. The white republicans aren't able to educate themselves out of their position.
www.nytimes.com/…
"Why Many Black Americans Changed Their Minds About Covid Shots
Black Americans were once far less likely than white Americans to be vaccinated. But a wave of pro-vaccine campaigns and a surge of virus deaths have narrowed that gap, experts say.
“I thought about the vaccine most every day,” said Ms. Dunn, 78, who finally walked into a pharmacy this summer and rolled up her sleeve for a shot, convinced after weighing with her family and doctor the possible consequences of remaining unvaccinated.
“What people need to understand is some of the hesitancy is rooted in a horrible history, and for some, it’s truly a process of asking the right questions to get to a place of getting the vaccine. "
In the first months after the vaccine rollout, Black Americans were far less likely than white Americans to be vaccinated. In addition to the difficulty of obtaining shots in their communities, their hesitancy was fueled by a powerful combination of general mistrust of the government and medical institutions, and misinformation over the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.
But a wave of pro-vaccine campaigns and a surge of virus hospitalizations and deaths this summer, mostly among the unvaccinated and caused by the highly contagious Delta variant, have narrowed the gap, experts say. So, too, have the Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of a vaccine and new employer mandates. A steadfast resistance to vaccines in some white communities may also have contributed to the lessening disparity
.While gaps persist in some regions, by late September, according to the most recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a roughly equal share of Black, white and Hispanic adult populations — 70 percent of Black adults, 71 percent of white adults and 73 percent of Hispanic adults — had received at least one vaccine dose. "
Consider that this difference of one percent is smaller than the margin of error and more importantly, this is without controlling for education or inequities or history. Moreover, the trend is clear . If the trend continues and I don't see any reason it would not, the gap will be that African Americans even without controlling for education or inequities or history are MORE likely to be vaccinated than white people.
The unvaccinated population has tended for some time now to be more white, more republican, and more rural than the population as a whole. Yet, white people in this country overall have huge structural and historical and other advantages. Recall the amazing work of brainwrap whose graphs show that the greater the percentage of the vote for Trump in a county the lower the percentage of people who are vaccinated and the greater number of cases of COVID-19 per capita. Republicans are dying at five times the rate of others.
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www.snopes.com/…
Neil DeGrasse Tyson did tweet that republicans are dying at five times the rate of others. This makes sense as 86-90% of democrats are vaccinated and the unvaccinated tend to be more white and more rural than the population as a whole.
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fivethirtyeight.com/…
"The 14 percent of Americans who are firmly opposed to getting the vaccine are overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white adults, they are much more likely to be insured, and they are more likely to identify as Republican. Compared to the “wait-and-see” group, those in the “definitely not” group have larger proportions of non-Hispanic white adults, Republicans, adults living in rural areas and white evangelical Christians.
Ten percent of vaccine-eligible Americans want to “wait and see” how the vaccine is working for others before deciding whether to get the jab. This group has shrunk significantly over time, suggesting they can be swayed. They’re more diverse than the hard noes; 4 in 10 adults in the wait-and-see group are people of color, compared with 26 percent in the “definitely not” group. There are also larger proportions of Democrats, younger adults and people reporting lower levels of education and income among the wait-and-see-ers. They have concerns about the vaccine, but some of them are also facing access barriers, said Liz Hamel, director of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "