Thread by @jacremes

A quick thread about something I've been pondering. The two states I think the most about--Connecticut and New York--have radically different vaccination regimes.

Connecticut's system is entirely by age (plus teachers and day care workers). The idea is that by keeping it simple and vaccinating people quickly, you deal with equity issues by making vaccines less scarce and easier to get.

New York has done the opposite: a very complex system based on disability and health, jobs and age. The idea is that the complexity gives more entry points and so creates more equity.

So you'd think that these two neighboring states could be a natural experiment: which version actually gets to a better outcome?

Well, in Connecticut, 66% of the population is white, and 75% of vaccine doses have gone to white people. In New York, 63% of the population is white, and 78% of vaccine does have gone to white people. So while NY is a shade worse, it's pretty similar. (These are as of March 15.)

Obviously there are other, better ways to measure equity, and race is not the only category that matters. But I am fascinated at how these really different systems are producing pretty similar results.

What I do think it points to is that eligibility regimes aren't going to be the drivers of equity. That's going to come from other things that have different timelines and temporalities: access to health care, transportation, language.

For the curious here are my sources. Here's KFF's page tracking racial vaccination data for all states kff.org/coronavirus-co….

Connecticut's data page is here. As ever, I think the most interesting and telling part is this map of vaccination rate by towns. Note how cities (plus Mansfield, where UConn is) are the lightest splotches. data.ct.gov/stories/s/CoVP…

I've been thinking this morning that perhaps the correct measure of equity is not to compare the percentage of white residents to the percentage of vaccines given to white people. After all the CT claim is that speed cancels everything else out.

That is, perhaps the question is whether a greater percentage of Black people (or other racialized people) are vaccinated in one state than the other. The answer is no: in CT, 11% of Black people are vaccinated and 8% of Hispanic people. In NY it's 11% and 10% respectively.

(In New York, 22% of Asians are vaccinated, which is the same percentage as white people. Connecticut hasn't reported its Asian coverage rate.)

Anyway, this reinforces my point yesterday which is that you're not going to get equity (however you measure it) through eligibility rules; you're going to get it through things that take much longer and aren't seen as directly pandemic related, even though they are.