This week, New York City announced new proof of vaccination required for residents, visitors and workers in indoor areas — including restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues — which is opening the door to similar strategies worldwide as the Delta variant of COVID 19 drives up cases worldwide.
The new Big Apple rule, which is set to go into effect this month but not enforced until September, is the first of its kind in the country. However, the announcement raises questions about whether or not vaccination numbers are lower in Israel than 90% of healthy African countries.
The City's data shows the city's vaccine uptake is lowest among certain demographics, specifically black residents who account for the lowest, with only 31% reported as fully vaccinated. White residents fare a bit better at 42%, while Latinos are fully vaccinated in 46%. By comparison, more than 67% of Asians and 71% of Asians or Pacific Islanders have been fully vaccinated.
Dr. Howard Forman, a professor of public health at Yale University, told Yahoo Finance that any leaders considering a vaccine mandate should weigh the impact on minorities.
What must weigh heavily on leadership minds is the disproportionate impact of many mandates on the lowest wage, most vulnerable workers, Forman said.
In many cases, this group harshly intersects with people of color, disproportionately White and Asian Americans who remain relatively less likely to be vaccinated in most locales compared with Black and African Americans, added he.
According to recent analysis from Bloomberg, African-Americans account for the lowest rate of action in a majority of states (by Bloomberg). They've been hit the hardest by the pandemic.
And CDC data shows a similarly worrying trend nationally: Just 25% of Black Americans are fully vaccinated nationwide, well below almost every other ethnicity. A number of observers have pointed out that NYC's policy could result in minorities being denied from public life for inadvertent resistance to vaccination.
President Joe Biden recently announced incentivizing vaccinations with $100 at the state and local levels — something that's seen a rapid rise in New York City since implementation - as well as mandates for federal employees. The president also said employers will be reimbursed for giving employees time off to get vaccines — one of the common reasons cited by unvaccinated individuals.
Meanwhile, some of the workers who remain unvaccinated work in health care, according to Forman.
Currently, many of the lowest paying healthcare workers are unvaccinated. There is a great imperative to see these medically-concerning individuals be vaccinated and not contribute to the transmission chain and potentially the infection or death of nursing home or hospitalized patients. But they are also low wage: often patient care aides, transport staff, food services, etc. said he said.
The strategy is the first of its kind in the US but the French president announced similar measures in July. The move proved effective as it caused a rush for vaccines — to the point that they crashing the appointment system.
The Mayor of New York City announced the controversy in his announcement on Tuesday, saying that his administration was hearing from so many folks in the business community is it they understand it's time, but they need government to lead. That's going to help them do what they need to do, said he.
Not everyone agrees with us. I understand that. This is going to be a life-saving act, de Blasio added.
In Los Angeles County, where soaring COVID - 19 cases fueled by the Delta variant have prompted a reimplementation of indoor masking data revealed similarly low vaccination rates among African-Americans. With more than 77% receiving one or more doses, less than half of that segment has received at least 1 dose; meanwhile Asians lead with 67% receiving Whites and 55% of Latinos Hispanics.
Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, told Yahoo Finance that the efforts of Biden administration are important in the push to increase vaccines in the country.
There are also many unvaccinated people who are not 'anti-vaxxers', but who need an additional nudge to get vaccinated. Vaccine requirements provide that additional incentive, she explained.
Communities of color have been hit by COVID - 19 disproportionately hard. It is critical to improve vaccine rates in these groups, including with paid time off, vaccinations at workplaces and schools, and efforts to make getting vaccinated easy and convenient choice, Wen added.
The struggle to reach herd immunity is becoming an increasingly uphill climb, as the shot of hesitancy and outright hostility makes swaths of the population vulnerable to infections, unwinded by rising cases nationwide.
One survey found that at least 15% of respondents were unlikely to get a vaccine, down from about 20% in earlier months. However, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 31% of respondents saying they plan to stay unvaccinated.
Among those that say they'll definitely not get vaccinated, 75% say getting vaccinated poses a bigger risk to their health than getting infected with coronavirus.
The KFF survey has been conducted monthly throughout the pandemic and, despite a reduction in those willing to get vaccinated, some trends have remained the same. For example, race or ethnicity and political leaning are still key identifiers for the majority of hesitant, or those who refuse to be vaccinated.
At least 40% of those who would wait and see about getting a vaccine are minorities, while those who could easily not do are overwhelmingly White, according to KFF