Duval County

Action News Jax Gets Real: Vaccines rollout in minority communities

JACKSONVILLE,Fla. — Right now in Florida, African Americans represent 17% of the population, but they only account for 4.9% of the total number of people vaccinated

So why the lower number? Well, we spoke to Edward Waters, College Director at the Center for Prevention of Health Disparities.

He tells Action News Jax while there’s been a long history of mistrust in the medical community, he believes there’s a lot more contributing to this low number.

The center’s director, Dr. Brian Seymour, explains, “Many of the people in our community don’t have Internet access, we don’t have transportation to get to the vaccine center so we actually need to bring the vaccine to this most vulnerable community here in Health Zone 1.”

Florida Sen. Aubrey Gibson tells Action News Jax:

“While the release of doses to the state has been unpredictable & thus to locals, it is by no means unpredictable in this city how to target minority seniors in the community. Data readily available can help drive deliberate sites to administer the vaccines. Make no mistake, there is not widespread fear of the vaccine by minority seniors, they are calling to ask for the vaccine.”

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