The progress on data reported and vaccines administered has been too slow for some elected officials.
During a March 10 Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting, state Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, shared his frustration with the low vaccination rate among communities of color.
“I feel kind of that you broke my heart and broke your promise to me,” Miles told Imelda Garcia, DSHS associate commissioner for laboratory and infectious disease services and chair of the Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel, which makes recommendations for vaccine allocation strategies to the Texas Commissioner of Health.
Garcia acknowledged the state can “do better” to improve equity, but admitted local officials are responsible for the majority of vaccine distribution.
“At the end of the day, we can put vaccines in certain places, but it’s the locals that know their communities best,” Garcia told lawmakers during the hearing. “All we can do is give the vaccine. Where they put it, where they choose to move it, who they choose to vaccinate … is on them.”
In January, advocates for communities of color worried they would have more trouble accessing vaccines than white Texans, given that the state’s distribution centers are more common in white, affluent neighborhoods.
A University of Pittsburgh and West Health Policy Center study, done in February, showed that Texas had one of the highest concentrations of counties in which Black residents were more likely than white residents to have a driving distance of more than 10 miles to a vaccine hub. Unfortunately, this is a direct result of vaccine providers like hospitals and pharmacies being located in predominantly white, wealthy areas.
Several Texas counties have begun to employ measures to combat some of the obstacles communities of color face in getting vaccinated. To reach Black, Hispanic, and low-income populations, many cities turned to existing public health clinics, community centers, and other local institutions to sign up and vaccinate more people.