Have the original racial gaps in Covid gaps really disappeared? Yes. By either of the main measures, the Black and Latino Covid death rates are no longer higher than the white rate. Here’s what happened … 🧵nytimes.com/2022/10/04/bri…

Early in the pandemic, there were very large gaps, with the Black and Latino rates of serious Covid and death much higher than the white rates. A major reason: Lack of convenient vaccine access in many communities.

This is a heartbreaking story from 2020: As Teresa Bradley, a Michigan nurse with Covid, was being wheeled through an ER, she looked around. “Everybody in there was African-American,” she said. “Everybody was.” nytimes.com/interactive/20…

What changed? 1) Grass-roots activists and medical providers made a big push, both to get vaccines into vulnerable communities and to persuade skeptics of their importance. 2) The Biden administration replaced the Trump administration and set out to equalize vaccine access.

It worked. By late 2021, the racial vaccination gaps had largely disappeared. And the gaps in Covid death rates soon followed.