How race factors into decisions about who should get priority for COVID-19 vaccines

At the height of a pandemic that has torn through America’s communities of color with particular ferocity, health officials are engaged in a fraught exercise in fairness: how to nudge communities of color toward the front of the line for scarce vaccines while pretending that race and ethnicity have no influence on vaccine priority.

The country has been deeply divided over quotas and affirmative action since long before the current health crisis. Assigning vaccine priority on the basis of race or ethnic heritage would therefore invite debate, recriminations and legal challenges.

The numbers, however, are stark. Nationally, Black Americans and Latinx people are hospitalized at rates roughly four times higher than white Americans, and their risk of dying of COVID-19 is close to three times higher. The death rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives is nearly double that for white Americans, according to the Centers for Disease