Analysis

Today, CommuniVax, a group led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University released a new report, Carrying Equity in COVID-19 Vaccination Forward: Guidance Informed by Communities of Color, that outlines findings from local research within Black and Hispanic/Latino communities in Alabama, California, Idaho, Maryland, and Virginia and provides specific guidance to government officials on adapting COVID-19 vaccination efforts to achieve greater vaccine coverage in underserved populations and, through this, to develop sustainable, locally appropriate mechanisms to advance equity in health.

Key findings of the local research are:

‘Like we’re on an island’: How Missouri’s inaction allowed delta variant to spread As a highly-contagious COVID variant spread across Missouri in June, thousands of pages of public records show growing alarm and frustration among health officials. The Kansas City Star

... Missouri now has the second-highest rate of new cases per capita, according to data compiled by The New York Times, and among the lowest adult vaccination rates among all states.

What went wrong?

Can we stretch existing Covid vaccines to inoculate more people? Is the world is using more vaccine than it needs to on each person immunized, depriving people in the queue of a chance to be protected? Helen Branswell STAT

With the global supply of Covid-19 vaccine still woefully inadequate, vaccine makers are scouring the pharmaceutical landscape for partners to ramp up manufacturing, and civil society groups are pressing politicians to waive intellectual property protections in a bid to spur still more production.