The vice president was vaccinated in December
Credit: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Kamala Harris, the US vice president, will take a leading role in the US government’s efforts to persuade sceptical ethnic minority communities to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Ms Harris, the highest-ranking person of colour in the administration, will be deployed to local communities to spread awareness about access to the Covid-19 vaccine and boost confidence in the jab.
The issue is a crucial first test for Ms Harris and Joe Biden, who came into office vowing to tackle the racial inequities in healthcare which have been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Figures suggest black Americans are around three times as likely to die from the coronavirus than their white peers, but lag far behind in terms of immunisation rates.
Ms Harris’s involvement to date in the administration’s pandemic response has been carefully co-ordinated.
She received her first dose of the vaccine publicly at United Medical Center, Washington DC’s only public hospital, which predominantly serves black patients.
Ms Harris’s involvement to date in the administration’s pandemic response has been carefully co-ordinated.
She received her first dose of the vaccine publicly at United Medical Center, Washington DC’s only public hospital, which predominantly serves black patients.
It is also in an area of the city with one of the worst infection rates.
"I want to remind people that right in your community is where you can take the vaccine," Ms Harris said at the time.
The hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr William Strudwick, said he was optimistic her presence would “influence people in this neighbourhood and convince them that it is safe and effective."
In a social media campaign urging the public to get vaccinated, Ms Harris stressed that "communities of colour" had been "particularly" hard hit.
"When it becomes available to you, don’t wait — get vaccinated. It’s safe, easy, and it saves lives," she said alongside footage of herself receiving the jab.
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Dr Elana McDonald, a black paediatrician working to expand healthcare access to underserved communities in Pennsylvania, told The Telegraph it was "extremely important" the vice president had become a public face for the government’s vaccine rollout programme.
"She’s someone the African-American community can relate to," she said.
A number of studies have found that black adults are more sceptical than their white counterparts about Covid-19 vaccines, with many of those polled saying they are unlikely to get the jab.
According to a December study by the Pew Research Centre, fewer than half of black Americans said they intended to get a Covid-19 vaccine, compared with 63 per cent of Hispanic people and 61 percent of white people.
Systemic inequalities in the health care services and historical mistreatment are largely to blame.
Black activists say many in the community harbour decades-long suspicion of the scientific community because of abuses like the 1930s Tuskegee Experiment, during which public health officials withheld treatment of syphilis from poor black men to study its effects.
Dr McDonald said: "Most people are aware of those [events] and they are the driving factors for the mistrust. They don’t want to be guinea pigs."
Ms Harris has also been deployed by Mr Biden to push his proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package to voters in West Virginia and Arizona.
In reference to her publicity blitz a White House spokesman said: "Our focus is communicating with the American people about how the American rescue plan can help."
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