Deprioritizing People With Asthma for the Covid-19 Vaccine Is a Racial Justice Issue
The CDC says the condition doesn’t put people at a greater risk for severe Covid-19, but there’s an equity argument to be made
On Monday, Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley tweeted that excluding asthma from the list of medical conditions eligible in phase two of the state’s vaccine rollout was “devastating for Black & Brown communities in MA with disproportionately higher rates of asthma” and “both a racial & environmental justice issue.”
Pressley was referring to well-established data showing that Black and Brown people have higher rates of asthma because they have been historically redlined into polluted areas. These communities have also been hit harder by the Covid-19 pandemic, with disproportionately high rates of severe disease and death compared to White Americans.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes asthma as one condition that “might be at an increased risk” for severe Covid-19. “Might be” carries a lot of weight in that sentence, as it means that asthma is not included on the list of diseases that are currently eligible for vaccination in many states. Those conditions are associated with a more certain increased risk of…
