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Blacks, Hispanics are catching up to white vaccination rate

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, here are the vaccination rates by racial and ethnic group:

Over the past four months the white population has fallen farther behind Asian Americans, who are now 17 percentage points ahead. At the same time, the Hispanic and Black populations have made up some ground. Hispanics have gone from 13 points below whites to only 5 points below. The Black population has gone from 13 points below to 10 points below.

29 thoughts on “Blacks, Hispanics are catching up to white vaccination rate

    1. ey81

      Liberals don't draw those fine distinctions. It's all the same to them. Occasionally they are surprised to learn that those various groups don't necessarily like each other.

      1. cld

        To learn the category 'Asians' is just way too broad?

        I don't think that's a mystery to anyone, but it would be a great example of the kind of academic exercise that wastes a lot of time to achieve nothing.

        1. JimFive

          If you can find that the vaccination rate differs significantly between different groups that fall under the heading "Asian" then you might have a point. Otherwise you're just whining.

  1. Dee Znutz

    Sounds to me like what has really happened is whites have plateaued while everybody else kept going.

    Thanks white people for being so stupid.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      Blacks has gone up a little in the south, which is the only place they were gaining. Not much of a gain. Drum is profiling.

    2. TheMelancholyDonkey

      No, that's not what you are seeing. Try actually reading the chart. The percentage of white people who are vaccinated is defined as 0 for each point in time. No matter how many white people are getting vaccinated, that line will be flat at zero. The other lines are defined as the percentage of that ethnic group/race that is vaccinated relative to the number of white people that are vaccinated.

      1. Dee Znutz

        If all others are going up compared to white rate, that means the white rate is not increasing as quickly. While it may not be exactly flat it surely means whites are not getting the Vox at rates they used to which will make every other race’s lines look like this.

  2. rational thought

    Asians include all you mention. Which makes it a poor statistic. I would guess groups like Filipinos are close to Hispanics and east asians and south asians are even higher.

    Adjusted for age alone, Hispanics are ahead of whites now I believe. Basically if you control for other factors now , being Hispanic will predict a slightly higher chance of being vaccinated. Not so for blacks overall but the black differential seems concentrated in the young and male.

    The minority non vaccinated had been due more to things like laziness, procrastination, simple self interest ( as for someone young the risk of catching covid in may made it questionable whether it was worth it personally). For whites, a higher percentage was and is ideological or fact based ( whether the facts are wrong or right). And that is much less likely to change.

    And white vaccination rates are going up too, just not as fast.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      I don't agree. Blacks are way behind in many southern states even. Their anti-covid vax propa blows away the bulk of whites. All groups have some "trailers".

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      Asians include all you mention. Which makes it a poor statistic.

      All such statistics are, by nature, limited in the granularity of information they give us. You could make the same complaint about the "white" statistics. What's the number for Americans of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage vs. Americans of Greek heritage vs. Scotts-Irish heritage (etc). Curious people demand answers!

  3. rick_jones

    Given there is an upper bound to vaccination percentage, unless different demographics have different asymptotes they would by definition have to converge no?

    1. golack

      In the sense that yes, only 100% can get vaccinated. But the white vaccination rate stalled well below that level--ok, until Delta Wave and employer "mandates" (usually not a true mandate per se, just workers either supply proof of vaccination or must wear masks and get tested).

      Better outreach in getting the vaccine to minority communities, and there is a pretty hard core anti-vaxxer group among whites.

      The numbers reflect the difference the percent vaccinated for each group, not percent differences between vaccination levels. It is also % total vaccinated, not % adults or % eligible. And its for at least 1 dose--so not necessarily fully vaccinated.

      The CDC site is...interesting. They list % population and % of those vaccinated for each demographic grouping. You need to multiply the percent vaccinated by total population percent vaccinated, then divide by percent of population to get % of each group vaccinated. I think. So if whites are 61% of the total population and 58% of those vaccinated are white...doesn't mean almost all whites are vaccinated (to some degree). Only 60% of people are vaccinated, so 58% of 60%, or 34.8% of total population are whites vaccinated. They make up 61% of the population, so (34.8/61)*100= 57% of whites are vaccinated to some degree. That may seem a little low, but, according to the latest CDC data, other demographic groups outperform whites with vaccinations. Not completely consistent with KFF data--but demographic information incomplete.
      CDC: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic

      1. Spadesofgrey

        Right, except the cdc numbers are wrong. 61% of the U.S. In total has had a shot. There numbers make little sense as they have all main 4 demographics below 50%, accept for nonprofile, and other small segments. My guess they are trying to adjust for age. But that is misleading. White's 60+ are heavily vaccinated. Which means White's are at about 64% fully vaccinated. It would take blacks until next spring to match white's at this range.....Which means very few arms left to jab.

      2. rational thought

        Look at the multiple other non Hispanic category. Obviously something wrong there. I am pretty sure that they are classifying racial groups in different ways in counting % of vaccinations and % of total population. And if characterized the same way, probably around half of the multiple other of vaccinations would be in white category and another chunk in Asian and black.

        From the 2010 census to 2020, clearly a good number who used to just identify as white now identify as multiracial. Doubt much really changed as to what they really think of themselves but it is more trendy, comfortable, etc to be multi today than 10 years ago. So someone 7/8 white might have identified as white 10 years ago and now emphasizes that other 1/8.

        I think the total population number is based on how people used to identify themselves.

        Someone at the cdc had to notice thus clear discrepancy and yet they still put out this flawed comparison table?

        If the numbers are showing % of total population, then that is a bias that will make Hispanics look worse and whites better then reality comparatively due to % of population under 12 who cannot even get vaccinated. So bad statistic to use to compare racial groups

  4. rational thought

    Spades,

    Where are you getting your numbers? I cannot see anything that shows what you are saying and they do not make sense based on what I do see.

    There are a number of issues with all this racial data. As I said above, when golack was trying to come to conclusions from the cdc site re % of each race vaccinated ( from % each race has of vaccinations), no such conclusions can be made because the race definition is different for total population and for vaccinated. The cdc site says they are using the 2019 census estimate for total population racial numbers. But the actual 2020 census numbers show a different story. Non Hispanic white numbers were significantly lower and multiracial was way higher than the 2019 estimate. The mid census estimates just try to estimate growth each year for groups from the last census numbers, buy they do not take into account changes in identification.

    Racial identification is fluid and uncertain for many. Someone who is non Hispanic white 7/8 but has an Asian great grandparent for the other 1/8 may at some times identify as white and others multiracial. May depend on the national mood , how the question is asked, who is asking it, etc. And it appears that a decent number who identified as white in 2010 now identify as multiracial.

    So, in golack's analysis, the problem is that some vaccinated who were white in 2010 and are now multiracial are included in the denominator but not in the numerator so the calculation is off.

    But that was for golacks multistage backing in ( which was sort of silly as there was actual % vaccinated of each race below). What about that % vaccinated by race number ( 50% of whites, 40% of blacks, 45% if Hispanics)? Is that accurate? I wonder.

    For those numbers , if they also used the 2019 estimate, they are off too.

    Presumably we have relatively accurate numbers of those vaccinated by race ( self identified)but nothing on numbers of unvaccinated by race. So all this is based on some estimate of % of total population by race. To the extent that is off, the %ages are off too.

    And we know the 2019 estimates are off because we now have the 2020 census numbers. So why are they using those flawed numbers?

    And the cdc and others insisting on reporting the number of vaccinations as % of cases by race is just so stupid beyond belief. Vaccinations and case percentages should be negatively correlated , both because unvaccinated are more likely to get it and because those who got it are less inclined to need to get vaccinated.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      Again rational, 61%+ have a shot. By the CDC themselves. Take out children and you get a percentage. Indeed it's a estimation.

  5. rational thought

    But the cdc does give the total vaccination rate for whites and it is 50% per cdc, not 61.1%.

    Methinks you got the 61.1% number somewhere which was for total population not adults, but you thought it was for adults. So you are projecting to adults for a %age that is already adults ( although maybe 16+ instead of 18+).

    And if 18+ was really 61.1, I think am 80% estimate for total is decent but a tad too high.

    But can also say this whole exercise in trying to compare vaccination rates this precisely is crap. From the cdc website, they have racial data on 63.4 of partially vaccinated and 68.6 fully. And you want precise comparisons missing that much data? Laughable. And, as I said before, if they are using 2019 estimates of racial groups, off there too.

    From personal experience being a census enumerator in 1980, Hispanics were most likely to refuse to give race or insist on "American " ( there was a real pride in wanting to become American then in many even illegal Hispanic immigrants that might be missing today). And many whites too. But no asians or blacks ( I stuck to the rules and always asked- had a few " are you blind, white boy" comments from blacks with real dark skin). So that missing data might just be underestimating Hispanic and white vaccination rates and underestimating Asian.

    I can with reasonable confidence say it appears that blacks are below whites and Asian ahead of whites in vaccination. But how much hard to tell. And Hispanics? Not good enough data.

    And does it really matter who is ahead by a bit?

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