Do you believe wealthy areas are being favored for vaccine distribution?

In Florida the wealthiest counties were the most covid ridden. Those counties do have pockets of very poor people too. A lot of counties with fairly low median incomes, I’d say low middle class, are not signing up to get vaccinated! Their appointments sit open!

The main county for The Villages, where I live, was completely overlooked originally and the governor did some damage control. It was really bad at first, the vaccine distribution seemed to be by total population in a county rather than eligible population.

Even now we need a pop-up first come first serve really badly, but politically it’s probably a problem because recently jellies informed me where I live is full of a bunch of rich people.~ The truth is we have a lot of older people who aren’t rich who want the vaccine and can’t drive far and can’t navigate making an appointment easily.

Many people here drove across two counties to get vaccinated. 20–60 minutes one way depending on location. They are counted in the county they were vaccinated, not where they live.

I think the people willing to take the vaccine need to be focused on. Going into cities where people can’t travel far and going to cities that appointments book quickly and waste avoidance lists are 2–300 people long is a good indicator there is a big need.

I think the way the question is conceptualized must be shifted. Rich versus poor area bias is probably invalid concerning outcome because it is strikingly apparent that the huge variation in regards to numbers of successful vaccinations from place to place have little to do with comparative wealth. Strangely enough, this time, it’s about the fantastic variety in the setups for distributing and administering the shots. When you consider that it is not only decisions from state to state that determines differences and outcomes, but crucial choices at every stage from transport through the sites of inoculation themselves that matter. It is the cumulative efficiency of every stage combined that determines how many will be vaccinated and how quickly. This being the case, the usually coercive influence of wealth on outcomes hasn’t time to work its wiles. But this anomaly will be short lived to say the least, and just because rich areas have no advantage yet in results compared to less affluent regions or neighborhoods, the rich still have the advantage in their ability to horn in on whichever locations are achieving the better numbers. I find it fascinating that something so critical in this society has actually turned out so randomly independent of the wealth of individuals dependent on it.

@JLeslie: “While I do agree poor inner city areas need special attention and in many places that only started happening recently, the general theme implied here I don’t agree governors purposefully favored rich counties because of the wealth in those counties.”

Intention needn’t be a factor in identifying policies that have directly harm the poor. If the outcomes show huge discrepancies across class (and racial) lines, then the rollout is by definition favoring the wealthy.

Here in MA, we’ve had people calling for racial and economic justice in the state’s shit response to Covid. We never had a shutdown due to C19 – except the shutdown of public schooling . This has been devastating to all children – but particularly bad for the poor and working class children and their families. Women have been hit really hard.

Besides the state making the burden of C19 rest of the shoulders of working class kids and families, its rollout of the vaccine has continued favoring the wealthy (who haven’t really had to even deal with C19 since the beginning). Local hospitals and clinics have been robbed of vaccines, with the majority of the supply being funneled to mass vaccination sites. This has robbed the most vulnerable access to vaccines.

Anyway, I just object to the framing that intention is an important factor in identifying class war or racism. If policies harm poor and non-white populations disproportionately, they are by definition racist and classist.

Our county has the first vaccination clinic in a neighborhood that is primarily Africa-American. Walgreen sponsored the vaccine clinic, co-sponsor is neighborhood AME church It is the Johnson and Johnson “one shot”, high percentage of the people there don’t own cars and would be consider low income.

Well, DeSantis got a 250k “campaign donation” (read: bribe) from someone associated with a wealthy enclave after said enclave got preferential treatment.
So, yes. The corruption is real.

@ragingloli what was that maybe 1,000 people? I’m not saying there isn’t some corruption, but that is a drop in the bucket compared to an entire state plan of favoring wealthy counties and locations over poorer ones.

My gripe is how these generalizations hurt the people in my city and other parts of Florida and other states.

I’m all for exposing corruption, but not for manipulating statistics to create a story that isn’t really there. I also think it’s good there has been constant attention pressuring to bring vaccine sites to the poorer areas of the inner cities.

It seems like we have engineered this discrepancy with the rules we set up. First Responders first. Doctors and nurses are typically more affluent. Then age dependent rules where retirement communities, such as the one @JLeslie lives in, are typically in more affluent areas. Are we saying that these rules for vaccination are wrong? Not everything is a racial issue.

Not exactly the same thing, but I’ve been hearing about easy access for people with certain insurance, whose providers organize the distribution to them, while people without that insurance are finding it difficult to find vaccine.

More of a practical logistical consideration than an organized decision, though.

I don’t know, but around here there have been weekly vaccine distribution clinics put on by the county and they’re specifically for lower-income residents. But both of my parents, who are high income and under 65 without any significant health conditions were able to get vaccines recently too. So based on my personal experience, I’m not sure. Seems like it’s going fairly well here compared to many other parts of the country (and we usually suck at everything).

In my state, I don’t think it was a question of the vaccine being made available in only wealthy areas but that those who were computer savvy and could travel were able to get appointments more easily when appointments were scarce. Appointments were still very hard to get even for them.

Now there is more vaccine and several of the cities, like the one near my home, have set up phone numbers to schedule appointments at city locations such as churches. It’s definitely a patchwork of providers that is hard to navigate without help or enough time.

It was definitely the white middle and upper classes who had more access at first but as I said, I think the situation is being addressed – at least partially.

Also, our local representative has set up a phone line for folks to call who need help scheduling an appointment.

@Jaxk Vaccinating healthcare workers first does influence some counties appearing to have been vaccinating based on wealth possibly, but the county largest in The Villages was not favored, it was passed over initially. I don’t even think there is a hospital in Sumter County, not one I can think of. Sumter holds the majority of The Villages. We do have a hospital in Lake County, The Villages runs through a small part of Lake. Sumter was initially given 2,500 doses for 75,000 eligible people back when it was 65 and up. Woefully inadequate. Most counties might have 15% of their people over 65, but we have 58%, so basing allocations on total population was ridiculous. This was after healthcare had already been receiving vaccinations for a couple of weeks. After 2 weeks of Sumter sitting on most of the 2,500 doses, because it seems they did not plan ahead, they finally starting to get some doses out. About then DeSantis set up a private company here and rerouted some vaccine from other parts of the state to Sumter and did a press conference to try to save himself with Villagers I guess.

DeSantis totally botched it up initially with the allocations to my area, but at least he did something to try to correct it, but other parts of the state think we are being favored, but very far from it. Half the Villagers still have to go outside of county to get vaccinated, which goes with what @janbb was saying that people who could drive had more opportunities. Those people are counted in the counties they were vaccinated in.

Anyway, sorry for the long explanation, it was also opportunity for me to vent I guess. I just worry that politics keeps DeSantis and Biden from sending a FEMA site here, and we still have lots of much older people who cannot do the drive or easily make the appointments. We do have people helping to make appointments for people who are struggling, but many people can’t travel far and the appointments book up fast in the one or two stores that might be near the person. If FEMA sets up here the left bias media will go insane saying The Villages is being vaccinated while minority areas are still overlooked. I do not want us put in front of poor areas, I just don’t want us overlooked. I don’t even mean me, I already had my first shot. I kind of have taken it upon myself to advocate for my community.

There is no scenario where everyone will be happy. Frankly I’d much rather be living in Florida than California.

@Jaxk Completely agree that there was no way for it to be perfect. I actually agree that I’d rather be in FL than CA, but I do think there was an in-between scenario that would have been much better. A mask order here would have protected us much better from all these people who travel to my state. It seems quarantine would never have been done because the governor wants the tourist dollars.