Now we’re looking at communities with a higher mortality rate and whether those neighborhoods get the vaccine or not.
SEE ALSO: Residents of Houston and Area ‘Hurt’ in Low-Income Minority Areas Without Vaccines
Our research found that a dozen zip codes east of downtown Houston have a higher death rate of 151 deaths per 100,000 residents, but the overall vaccination rate for those communities is 4.5%.
We wanted to see where the vaccines are going and found 40% of Harris County zip codes where the death rate is not that high – with less than 150 deaths per 100,000 residents – and yet there is a higher percentage of the population that is vaccinated. The differences are why doctors and clinics are calling for vaccination program leaders to get the vaccines in the neighborhoods versus mass vaccination centers.
“We need them here. We have the people who die from COVID, the Hispanic people, the African Americans, the low-income, low-resource people are here in Harris’ health. We need them here.” said Glorimar Medina, the executive. vice president of Harris Health System’s Ambulatory Care Services, last month.
INTERACTIVE: Want to know which communities have a higher death rate, but fewer people have been vaccinated? Explore the map for those details, broken down by zip code. On a mobile device? Click here for a full screen experience.
Dr. Erica Villalobos, a physician at HOPE Clinic Aldine, said residents in her neighborhood sometimes lack access to transportation, the Internet, or other resources needed to sign up for a vaccine and receive a dose.
“The risk of not having access to the vaccine is still an increased risk of becoming infected with COVID and succumbing to the serious complications associated with COVID, including death,” she said.
In the zip code 77039 where her clinic is located, the death rate is 109.2 deaths per 100,000 residents and only 2.7% of residents have been vaccinated, according to an analysis of city data.
More than 28,000 residents live in that neighborhood, but only 600 vaccines have been assigned since the state began dispensing vaccines nine weeks ago. HOPE Clinic Aldine has been state approved to provide the vaccine, but they have not yet received any doses.
“We all want what’s best for the community, and what’s best for the community right now is to be able to get vaccinated,” said Villalobos.
Across the country, 3,081 residents have died from COVID-19. The city and county provide daily information about the number of deaths within each zip code.
ZIP-level vaccination data for Houston and Harris County is not available on the city or county website. The last data we received on the number of residents vaccinated in each zip code was valid through February 4, 2021.
The delay in data presents some limitations to our analysis. As of this week, 351,391 Harris County residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 126,632 have been fully vaccinated.
From 67% of the vaccinated residents in Harris County, we only received data on how many people were vaccinated by zip code.
The state has said it would like agencies to collect better data on vaccination. Race and ethnicity data from, for example, 40% of Texas residents who have received a vaccine are unknown. It’s located slightly in Harris County, where race and ethnicity are unknown to only 28% of vaccinated residents.
“[It] makes it difficult to know if the entities are really reaching out to those communities, ”said Dr. David Lakey, a member of the Texas Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel.
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