As expected, most COVID vaccines are being issued in majority white, wealthier areas of Kansas City. 

https://www.kansascity.com/news/coronavirus/article249479835.html

While we know that some in our communities, our black and brown communities, may be suspicious of the vaccine, and acknowledge other factors too, it is without question the case that low-income residents of color have restricted access to the healthcare centers getting most of the vaccine shipments from the state. This is due to wealth and geographic factors birthed from our city's Jim Crow past (and forms of contemporary discrimination).

Those without insurance, those who live in the "wrong" part of town, those without transportation options, those who aren't white, those without much income -- they deserve a vaccine shot as much as anyone else!

The major hospitals of Kansas City (as well as any pharmacies, clinics, family care centers, and health departments that have received vaccines) have a moral responsibility to bring the vaccine out of wealthier, healthier, whiter zip codes and into our communities as well. This means organizing events and sending mobile units out. We applaud, for example, Truman Medical Center's vaccination event at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. We also lift up KU Med and Wyandotte for prioritizing low-insured, at-risk areas. But more is needed.

KC healthcare providers, we know vaccines are limited. We know not everyone has mobile units, or vast resources to spare for journeying into our communities. But equity is a matter of life and death. That's why we call on each of you to:

1. Hold a press conference to publicly commit to addressing the inequity we're witnessing
2. Send mobile units into and host vaccination events in low-income, at-risk minority zip codes of the Kansas City metro -- or, for entities with fewer resources, other effective actions to address this inequity according to your means
3. Issue a public weekly report (shared to socials, websites, the press, etc.) on how many events, mobile unit deployments, etc. have been completed and how many vaccines issued in our communities         

If you need help connecting with churches, community centers, and so on in these zip codes for partnerships in your efforts, email Danise Hartsfield, Communities Creating Opportunity Executive Director, at danise@cco.org.