Supervisor Juli E. Briskman | Loudon.gov
Supervisor Juli E. Briskman | Loudon.gov
Supervisor Juli E. Briskman did not respond to requests to define what “equitable” means in terms of COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
“Loudoun County will follow the guidelines of the Virginia Department of Health for distributing the COVID-19 vaccine in a fair, equitable and transparent manner,” Briskman tweeted on Monday.
Several replies asked her to define what she meant by “equitable” but she did not reply to the queries.
Many leaders across the country have focused on saying the vaccine will be released equitably, noting that Black and Latino people have been impacted by the coronavirus more than others.
"Without considering racial equity, we deepen the cracks that systemic racism has already created in our health care system,” Sernah Essien of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines told NBC News.
Those in Black and Latino communities have been struggling with high infection rates of COVID-19 and are the least likely to be vaccinated when the vaccine is available, according to NBC.
Several states have said Black and Latinos who have been affected the most should be vaccinated first. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in November that Black and Latino residents would receive the vaccine first.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said something similar.
"We know that our Black, brown and poorer communities have fewer health care institutions,” Cuomo said, NBC reported. “Their communities too often have health care deserts."
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) had previously said it believed that racial communities that have been impacted more “socioeconomically and epidemiologically” should get the vaccine first.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also echoed the same ideas, JAMA reported.
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