MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — This week, the Montgomery County Council and members of the Maryland General Assembly will discuss ways to try and make the rollout more equitable moving forward.
As for what inequities state and local officials are working to overcome, a Montgomery County memo said it includes members of the population that face barriers of lack of internet, computers, computer skills, transportation, time, and misinformation about the vaccine.
“It is imperative that right away today we make sure that the issues related to access to the vaccine are addressed. So that means we need to make sure that there are ways to get appointments for the vaccine that don't depend on you having a lot of time off of work, or transportation to take you across the state,” Kelly said. “And we cannot have an appointment system that depends on you spending 40 hours a week hitting refresh on your computer in order to access an appointment. That's huge. And that's going to really help us. When we address those issues that will really help us with the access to the vaccine issue. Then there are these longer-term conversations about addressing the fact that many communities have some hesitancy around taking the vaccine.”
According to the data, a Montgomery County Council memo shows 66% of Montgomery county's white population has so far preregistered for the vaccine despite only making up 43% of the county's population.
It also shows an underrepresentation of the Black and Brown community by more than 50%.
"It's absolutely something that many of us in the state legislature have been deeply concerned about,” Maryland Del. Ariana Kelly said.
Kelly serves on the state's Health and Government Operation Committee, is Chair of the Health Occupations and Long Term Care Subcommittee, and represents a portion of Montgomery County.
"We've been really ramping up our ability to distribute equitably. We certainly did not do that in the first few months, the data is clear on that,” Kelly said.
This week the Montgomery County Council is requesting a discussion of equity in the vaccine rollout and strategies to improve it. That discussion will happen Tuesday.
On the state level, Kelly says members of the general assembly will learn Monday about the state equity task force's plan.
“On Monday at the vaccine work group we're going to hear more about the details of the plan, but I can tell you that there have been partnerships made with local churches so that people can partner in the community for giving out vaccines. There's been some development in terms of working toward mobile vaccination sites that will particularly target the Spanish-speaking population,” Kelly said.
She said vaccines have also been allocated to the state’s equity task force that will go directly to partnerships with churches and community groups.