Black COVID-19 Vaccination Lag Appears to be Largest in Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina
African Americans are dying from COVID-19 at relatively high rates. And yet, they are being vaccinated at a relatively slow rate. Looking at the state-level data by race, which is only available for 34 states, it appears that African Americans are being vaccinated most slowly relative to other groups in Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. (See the end of this post for data for all 34 states.)
Black people’s share of COVID-19 deaths in a state provides an indication of how much at risk the black population is. However, in most states for which we have data, black people make up a smaller share of the vaccinations distributed in the state than their share of the state population that has died from COVID-19. In nearly all states, the reverse is true for the white population — their vaccination share exceeds their share of deaths.
Figure 1 highlights the largest gaps between the share of COVID-19 deaths that are of black people and the share of COVID-19 vaccinations received by black people. As of February 16, the largest gaps were for Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The other states are included in the figure for comparison and because they have large black populations.
To make the size of the gap easy to see and compare, Figure 2 presents just the percentage-point difference between the share of deaths and the share of vaccinations for the states in Figure 1. In Maryland, 35 percent of the people who have died from COVID-19 are black, but only 16 percent of the vaccinations have gone to black people. The difference between these percentages is 19 as displayed in Figure 2. Of the 34 states with COVID-19 vaccination data by race, Maryland, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina have the largest gaps. Florida has a moderate-sized gap. California and Texas have relatively small gaps for African Americans.
It is important to note that the quality of the available data is not ideal. There are significant shares of missing racial data among the states collecting data by race and differences in the methodology between states. These data are therefore suggestive, not conclusive.
