A July 19 headline in The Herald reads: “Worsening pandemic worries U.S. official.” Underneath the headline is an Associated Press article written by Jay Reeves. As a board-certified healthcare administrator, I was drawn to the article.
Reeves’ article states, “Officials are trying to overcome a refusal among some — particularly conservative, rural white people — to get vaccinated.” This is a canard showing Reeves’ bias toward a segment of American society and his poor research for the article. The fact that Reeves doesn’t name the source for his statement about poor COVID-19 vaccination rates is a clear-cut indication of his bias.
The real facts on vaccination rates among Americans of all ethnicities can be found in a Kaiser Family Foundation article published July 8. Kaiser writers used data from a CDC report of July 4. From the CDC data, the Kaiser Family Foundation report summarizes COVID-19 vaccination rates among Americans:
“ CDC reported that race/ethnicity was known for 58% of people who had received at least one dose of the vaccine. Among this group, nearly two-thirds were White (59%), 9% were Black, 16% were Hispanic, 6% were Asian, 1% were American Indian or Alaska Native, and <1% were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, while 8% reported multiple or other race.”
We as Americans should be concerned about the low COVID-19 vaccination rate across our nation. We need to be encouraging our fellow citizens to be vaccinated if we are to control COVID-19 and return our nation to a state of normalcy. What we don’t need is to scapegoat a segment of our population with falsehoods in this public health battle. Reeves’ article is inaccurate, and his statement on conservative, rural white people promotes racial animus.
Robert Bonds, McAllen
