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There is a lot of articles floating around talking about employers requiring workers to get vaccinated. While I believe that there are some concerns to be had about vaccine requirements in relation to folks who are not getting vaccinated due to medical reasons or religious beliefs, there is an element of feeding into anti-vax fear mongering that these articles also accomplish. Not all employers will be fair/just in accommodating workers who are in anyway unable to get the vaccine. (Ronan)

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As the US campaign to distribute continues to ramp up, over 8 million doses have now been administered in the US as of Jan. 11. For the time being, however, only very specific groups of people -- mostly health care workers -- have been cleared to receive a . Some of those medical professionals may be required by their employer to get vaccinated, which leads to the question: Can your employer make you get a COVID-19 vaccine?

The answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no. Generally speaking, yes, employers can require employees to receive a vaccine during a pandemic to better ensure the health and safety of their overall staff. However, there are a few exceptions that could exempt you from having to receive a vaccine if your employer makes it mandatory.

Here, we look at what gives employers the right to require their workers to get vaccinated for the coronavirus , as well as what laws are in place to protect you if you have a valid reason for not wanting to get vaccinated yourself. This article is intended to be a general overview and not a source of legal or medical advice.

US government says employers can require vaccines

According to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, US employers can require employees to receive vaccinations against diseases that have been recognized as pandemics, like COVID-19. The agency's guidance dates back to the H1N1 (aka "swine flu") outbreak of 2009 but was updated in March 2020 to address the coronavirus pandemic specifically. As was the case in 2009, there are two main exceptions to this rule; keep reading for an explanation of both.

Americans with Disabilities Act protects some people from mandatory vaccination

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide "reasonable accommodations" to workers with medical conditions that would make them unable to take a vaccine. For example, the FDA has recommended that people with certain allergies not get a coronavirus vaccine , but there may be other reasons as well, such as having a compromised immune system.

Civil Rights Act also protects people with religious beliefs opposing vaccines

Even if you don't have a medical reason for not wanting to get vaccinated for COVID-19, you may be able to object on other grounds -- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people who refuse to take a mandatory vaccine on account of sincerely held religious beliefs. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission does not require membership in a church or even a belief in God to substantiate religious objections: Strongly or sincerely held moral or ethical beliefs are also covered by the law.

What happens if you object to receiving a vaccine when your employer requires it?

Just because you have a valid medical or theological objection to receiving a coronavirus vaccine doesn't mean your employer has to let you continue working under the same conditions you've been used to. All of the above objections require employers to make "reasonable accommodations" if an employee objects to receiving a vaccine. Such accommodations could include allowing the employee to work remotely or take a leave of absence.

A 1905 Supreme Court case allows employers to require vaccines

In 1901, a deadly smallpox outbreak in New England prompted local governments to order mandatory vaccinations for everyone in the area. Some residents, however, objected, and one took it all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that the government may impose "reasonable regulations" such as a vaccine requirement during a pandemic, for the purpose of protecting the "safety of the general public."

This court case forms the basis for guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which makes clear that employers may make similar demands of their workers.

How likely is your employer to require a COVID-19 vaccine?

The industry most likely to require workers get immunized against coronavirus is the same one currently cleared to receive it -- health care. Other industries where workers are in a particularly high-risk group for contracting or spreading COVID-19, like retail or meat processing, are more likely to have employers require vaccines for their employees.

That said, many companies, rather than require coronavirus vaccinations, are focusing on making it easier for employees to get vaccinnated. The two biggest automakers in the US, for example, Ford and General Motors, have decided not to require vaccination of their workforces. Instead, Ford, for its part, has ordered a dozen of its own freezers to store the vaccine in when doses become available for its workers.

Here are a few other reasons why someone might not get a coronavirus vaccine right away , although the biggest thing stopping you right now might be where you fall in the CDC's list of priority groups . Not to mention that there are currently two different vaccines, with more on the way, and which type you get might depend on both who you are and where you are.

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Your employer can require you get a COVID-19 vaccine: Here's what to know

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A Supreme Court case determined that states can require vaccines and the US agency that oversees employment says your employer can, too.

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(sorry for just now posting, I had no idea how to work this site!)
With all the social systems in our world, for example, public health, politics, and economics, watching COVID 19 unravel with all of its features and mystery has affected these social systems. Rituals of everyday life have changed because of the presence of this virus. Bourdieu theorizes about inequality of capital- when thinking about social capital I thought of all the stress and odd behaviors that occurred when covid first started with buying cleaning materials, food, and toilet paper. If a person had ties to a store or restaurant they were not as frantic to obtain these materials.

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Shelves at the Target department store in Wadsworth, Ohio, were emptied of toilet paper and sanitizer a day after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine put in place a stay-at-home order. (Dustin Franz/for The Washington Post)

When the history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the vanishing of toilet paper might rank as just a footnote in an otherwise dark and frightening account. But it might be a very long, complex and even wise footnote, because toilet paper - or rather, the lack of it - turns out to reveal a great deal about who we are and how we behave in a crisis.

It showed David Cohen something about the nature of humanity: As a checkout guy at a supermarket in Asheville, N.C., he saw people buying absurd amounts of toilet paper, but he also saw people reach the cashier's counter and decide suddenly to consider those who have less.

"Some people said, 'Wait, I'm going to put these rolls back on the shelf so somebody else can get some,'" said Cohen, who was happy to wait while his customers made a quick return visit to Aisle 14.

It inspired Leslie Klein to poetry: "The store shelves are bare of necessities / Fear took the helm driving shopping to insanity / So, a cushion of paper gives a sense of security." Klein, an artist - and poet, if she didn't already know it - in West Stockbridge, Mass., isn't finding any rolls in her local stores, but she's been cheered to find that a sort of underground market in TP info has developed.

"Friends pass along hot tips," she said. "Like, 'You can find some wholesale at this place.' It's something people really feel they can't do without."

It confirmed Ronald Blumer's view that "people have deep emotional connections to what goes into and comes out of our bodies. It sounds highfalutin, but it's part of your being."

Blumer, a writer in Manhattan who actually wrote a book about toilet paper in 2013, managed to find a stash of the stuff the other day in, of all places, a little hardware store. "People don't know they carry it, so they still have some," he said. "Or maybe it's because it's not the best TP. Single-ply, oh dear!"

It has become something of an obsession. You can't find it at your local market, which can't get nearly enough from its distributors, which are getting their normal supply from the manufacturers, which isn't remotely sufficient.

The economics and logistics of the problem are a bit controversial, though there are good and plentiful theories to explain why your favorite supermarket's bland assurance that "more is on the way" - Google finds more than half a million hits for that bit of corporate hype about the easing of the TP shortage - is misleading.

The toilet paper shortage is real.

Fleets of experts, working from home, already are examining the question from as many perspectives as a university has departments. The quants - who have studied "the toilet paper problem" for years, asking why some people in public restrooms take from the larger, fuller roll while others, known as "little choosers," use the roll that's closer to empty - are focused on why the supply chain has broken down. Psychologists are curious why TP - not exactly essential to sustaining human life - ranks right up there with milk and bread in our panic-buying behaviors. Social historians look at why people came to view toilet tissue as vital when it didn't even become a household staple until the 1940s.

The toilet paper crisis Hawaii has never forgotten

All of which is interesting enough, but doesn't bring you any closer to scoring an eight-pack of Charmin Mega Ultra Strong or the elusive brick of Cottonelle Ultra ComfortCare. Or even a roll or two of the scratchy, see-through, single-ply cheap stuff.

The problem, like the virus that spawned it, is global. In Australia, a cafe began accepting rolls of TP as payment - a cup of coffee will run you three rolls. In Hong Kong, armed crooks held up a supermarket; all they took was 600 rolls of the soft stuff. A pet store in Dornburg, Germany, last week set up an outdoor toilet paper drive-through in a parking lot when the owner was able to obtain a massive shipment.

Nothing seems to be unspooling in the right direction for a commodity that rarely gets much attention: In Hutchins, Tex., a tractor-trailer hauling a full load of toilet paper crashed and burned last week on Interstate 20. Rolls, most charred or reduced to cinders, splayed all over, shutting down the roadway.

Demand is as flush as supply is bare. Americans have spent $1.4 billion on toilet paper in the past four weeks, a 102 percent increase from the same period a year before, according to data collected by IRI, which tracks retail sales based on the bar codes on products. (Prices have been quite stable over that time.) Only hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes and the like have seen substantially bigger sales boosts.

Perspective: Our only good news: Toilet paper won't run out

But toward the end of March, TP sales plummeted because the supply just wasn't there.

(Only one category of products found in grocery stores saw sales go down last week compared with a year earlier - energy drinks. Whether people are working from home or not working, they're apparently not needing nearly as much of a boost to get through the day.)

So why do the TP shelves remain great banks of emptiness more than a month after many stores reported that customers were hoarding the stuff?

The leading theories are:

1. We're buying too much toilet paper because we're panicked there won't be any when we need it.

2. We're actually using way more than usual at home because most people are sheltering in place rather than using the facilities while at work, school, restaurants or other public places.

"The third theory is that both of those are right," said Doug Baker, vice president at the Food Industry Association, which represents retailers, distributors and producers - the whole chain of businesses from the factory to you.

It's a three-part problem, Baker said. Part One, hoarding: "We have actual situations across the country where people are buying an entire case," he said. "Demand became unprecedented and still is."

That's something the industry knows well - customers regularly wipe out the toilet paper aisle ahead of big snowstorms and hurricanes, and the system can quickly rebound. But this crisis has tested limits because the spike in demand is nationwide, has been going on for some time, and is open-ended.

Part Two, displacement. The same number of people have the same need for toilet paper. But the industry is not set up for a wholesale move from work and school to home; home TP is softer, packaged in smaller rolls and is made and distributed by different companies than are the jumbo rolls seen in offices, institutional settings and public restrooms.

Part Three, adapting on the fly. Baker said the industry is changing, fast. Manufacturers have added hours at the factories and last week, the companies that make the industrial stuff made a deal with the country's big food distributors to get their product into grocery stores.

But it's not as simple as putting the big commercial rolls onto trucks. Most industrial rolls don't have bar codes on the package, so stores have trouble stocking them. They're adapting by putting little code stickers, like the ones stuck onto pieces of fruit, on the commercial rolls.

Grocers contend that, as Ira Kress, interim president of Giant Food, put it: "There is not a supply shortage, but it does take some time for the manufacturing process and our supply chain to catch up from the significant spike in demand."

Giant's suppliers "are shipping far more product to us than normal, but we are also selling far more product than normal," Kress said. "Please only purchase what you need for this week as opposed to stocking up."

It is unlikely the shortages will go away soon.

"We'll eventually get there," Baker said. "We need the machines to keep going. And we need to have sales abate. It could take multiple weeks."

Ideally, that won't lead to too much misbehavior by the TP-desperate. Black markets in the stuff have developed in the past. In the 1990s, a manager at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium stole $34,000 worth of toilet paper, leaving the ballpark short before an Eagles football game. The manager was fired after investigators determined he had been ordering double loads of toilet paper and reselling much of it. The scandal led a city official to deliver this legendary quote to a local reporter: "Man, he really wiped that stadium clean."

Blumer, who also has written books on sweat, pee and belly buttons, said that the modern notion that TP is essential was created by the companies that first sold Americans on using the product in the 1940s.

"They had to convince people to use it," he said. "They had an enormous ad campaign that terrified women, with surgeons with gloves and scalpels saying, 'It's a pity she didn't buy her husband proper toilet paper.'"

In an emergency, today's consumers could revert to using newspaper or book pages as their grandparents did, Blumer said. Or they could use bidets, which shoot jets of water to clean instead of paper - actually, toilet paper is mostly water, which is blended in the manufacturing process with pressure-cooked wood chips. Bidets, common in much of the world, never made big inroads into the U.S. market, but sales here have surged in recent weeks, according to makers of the devices.

But Blumer admits that a turn away from paper is unlikely in a society that many say has, like its TP, grown softer with each passing generation.

Decades of seemingly absurd television commercials portraying toilet paper as a cuddly buddy have seeped into the popular consciousness. So now, in the opening image of Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack's latest song, a plaintive cry about being "sick of being stuck in the house," a turtle nuzzles up against rolls of toilet paper, which Whack gingerly removes from safekeeping in the fridge, like priceless gems hidden away, a secret protection against the dark forces that threaten us all.

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Flushing out the true cause of the global toilet paper shortage amid coronavirus pandemic

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When the history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the vanishing of toilet paper might rank as just a footnote in an otherwise dark and frightening account. But it might be a very long, complex and even wise footnote, because toilet paper - or rather, the lack of it - turns out to reveal a great deal about who we are and how we behave in a crisis.

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I tried to do a short video but it was too large and I couldn’t upload it 😩

Thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and connections that you’ve shared here! It’s been really interesting to watch the conversation grow.

One of the things that’s been on my mind recently is the way the US portrays both health and healthcare as social and economic capital - this idea that you have to earn it, and if you’ve got a chronic illness you’re somehow less worthy of it. I think it shows especially in how mental health is stigmatized, how those who are not able-bodied are treated, and how there is such a push against universal healthcare.

I think it also plays out in the rollout of the vaccine. Massachusetts pulled vaccines from hospitals and tried to concentrate them at mass vaccination sites, but there’s only a few of those around the state. To get an appointment, you have to have access to the internet, be able to take any day/time available and have a way to get to the location. The website does not sort by location so someone from the Berkshires may have to travel all the way to Gillette Stadium (about 3 hours each way) for their appointment - twice. For those who rely on public transportation or minimum wage jobs, cannot easily travel due to mobility, or cannot afford a full day trip across the state, this sort of system seems designed for failure. Luckily, just this week, hospitals have been told they will receive vaccines once more, and there are some smaller sites set up at pharmacies, but this still does not fully address all the issues or guarantee appointments.

Here’s a link with more details: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/24/nation/hospitals-resume-offering-vaccine/

Once again, thank you!
Tonka

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Black and Hispanic adults are being vaccinated at lower rates than White adults

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"Simply put, I've never seen so many White people in Washington Heights," Bejar tweeted on Sunday.

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Black and Hispanic adults are being vaccinated at lower rates than White adults (Huda)

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Black and Hispanic adults are being vaccinated at lower rates than White adults (Huda)

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white people are getting vaccinated at higher rates than black and latino americans. - cnn

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White people are getting vaccinated at higher rates than Black and Latino Americans

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Black and Latino Americans are receiving the Covid-19 vaccine at significantly lower rates than White people -- a disparity that health advocates blame on the federal government and hospitals not prioritizing equitable access.

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"People who don't have a computer, don't have good internet, aren't comfortable with technology, maybe have limited English language skills, they are not getting through. And that's reflected in who is showing up at these sites."

This article speaks about white people going to a majority Hispanic / Latino neighborhood to get the vaccine. I wonder if the vaccine would have been given if the communities were reversed.

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a vaccination site meant to serve a hard-hit latino neighborhood in new york instead serviced more whites from other areas - cnn

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A vaccination site meant to serve a hard-hit Latino neighborhood in New York instead serviced more Whites from other areas

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A Covid-19 vaccination site in a Latino neighborhood in New York City hard hit by the pandemic saw an overwhelming number of White people from outside the community show up to get the shot this month, city leaders say, laying bare a national disparity that shows people of color are being vaccinated at dramatically lower rates.

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There has been a tremendous number of mixed messages in the media about what vaccination facilities should do with leftover vaccine doses at the end of a vaccine clinic. Some doctors have been fired for giving leftover doses to neighbors and family members while others have been called heroes for vaccinating as many people as possible. Health officials have recommended taking a vaccine if offered, even if means getting vaccinated before it is your turn. Many have questioned the ethics of getting a vaccine through a connection and others say that no vaccine should ever be thrown away. Will there be an equitable way to distribute leftover vaccines?

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Production of the few vaccines that have been approved by regulators is limited, with demand outstripping supply.

Supplies are running low in some high-income countries, putting pressure on manufacturers to step up production.

Meanwhile, almost all of the lowest-income countries - in Africa and elsewhere - have not even started giving vaccinations.

With coronavirus-linked deaths surpassing two million globally last week, the stakes of giving vaccinations to those that need them most could not be higher.

In most countries, health workers and the elderly are first in line, with few exceptions.

But there are some circumstances in which vaccine doses are available to young, less vulnerable people, regardless of their need.

These are leftover doses which, in the current climate, have raised questions about who should receive them, and how they should be allocated.

Why are there leftover vaccines?

A vaccine dose is left over when a patient who was scheduled to receive a jab fails to show up for their appointment.

That creates a dilemma, because vaccines have a limited shelf life.

For example, a vaccine made by Pfizer/BioNTech has to be injected within five days of the doses being thawed from sub-zero storage temperatures.

Otherwise, they go to waste, depriving someone of immunisation.

So, when the clock is ticking, what can be done?

"If we're talking about the Pfizer vaccine that can't be stored for very long, then obviously a decision has to be made about that vaccine quite quickly, because it can't be kept," Professor Heather Draper of the Warwick Medical School told the BBC.

"It's better for anyone to be vaccinated, rather than no-one."

In other words, every vaccine counts, even if only a small number are left over.

It depends on the circumstances. The guidance on this issue differs from country to country.

In the UK, eligible patients take priority, unless they do not show up for their vaccination.

In such instances, "the overriding principle will be to avoid wastage", so "vaccines may be administered to" health workers, the British Medical Association (BMA) says.

"All vaccination sites should have a reserve list so they can call people at short notice," Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA's GP Committee, told the BBC.

In other cases, vaccines have been given to people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was a prominent example. In a Facebook post, Mr Clarke-Smith said he was given a jab after spending an afternoon volunteering at a vaccination centre.

Mr Clarke-Smith was accused of queue-jumping, but he defended his decision to accept the dose, arguing it would have gone to waste otherwise.

There was a similar situation in Austria, where local government officials have been accused of skipping the queue for Covid-19 vaccinations.

Wolfgang Matt, the 65-year-old mayor of Feldkirch, received a first jab of the Pfizer vaccine at a care home. He said it was a leftover dose, given to him when all priority candidates had been injected.

"I wouldn't throw out stale bread either but use it to make toast," he told the public broadcaster ORF.

Disputing this, a doctor at the care facility said: "There were so many people waiting outside who would have needed a vaccine more urgently."

The pursuit of leftover doses has been no less controversial in the US, where the phrase "vaccine chasers" has become common parlance.

Across Los Angeles County, people of all ages have been queuing up for spare doses - in scenes more befitting of Glastonbury music festival than a vaccination centre.

Some have been camping out for hours, or coming back day after day equipped with sleeping bags, warm clothes and fold-up chairs.

"Just to have a chance at the vaccine, it would be life changing," Leah Robson, 27, told NBC Los Angeles outside a vaccine site.

"I'm glad they're prioritising older people, but if there's a chance I can get it, it's totally worth staying in line for all day."

For Ms Robson, there is no rush, it seems.

But sometimes, decisions about vaccinations need to be made more urgently.

Stuck in snow, health workers in Oregon were left with several vaccines that were close to expiring. Not wanting to waste them, staff walked from car to car, offering the vaccines to stranded drivers.

The handout of leftover vaccines has been reported elsewhere as well.

In Israel, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, there have been reports of younger people queueing up for end-of-day leftovers at vaccination centres.

A report by the Times of Israel newspaper said Israelis were discussing the best places to find spare shots in Facebook and WhatsApp groups.

This question was put to Dr Vautrey.

In exceptional circumstances, he said, there is nothing wrong with using leftover doses on people outside the priority groups.

"The cardinal rule is not to waste the vaccine," Dr Vautrey said.

"Ultimately, if there is absolutely nobody, and you're at the end of the day, then trying to find the next available person, who is the next highest priority, is better than wasting the vaccine."

What about young, fit and healthy people who have gone out of their way to queue for spare vaccines, though?

Their actions, Professor Draper said, can only be judged if we know their motivations.

"Is it because you're frightened? Is it because you're vulnerable? Is your job making you vulnerable? Or is it because you're so extraordinarily wealthy, that you've got nothing better do to with your time?

"We'd need to know every person's motivation before we can say that simply willing to queue is a me-first cultural step," Professor Draper said.

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Covid-19 vaccines: Is it OK to get a leftover jab?

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Production of the few vaccines that have been approved by regulators is limited, with demand outstripping supply. Supplies are running low in some high-income countries, putting pressure on manufacturers to step up production. Meanwhile, almost all of the lowest-income countries - in Africa and elsewhere - have not even started giving vaccinations.

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Is complacency leading to missed vaccine appointments? (Gabby)

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Is complacency leading to missed vaccine appointments? (Gabby)

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In January, India launched one of the world's largest vaccine programs with Prime Minister Modi ensuring 300 million people would be vaccinated by July.
The country is seeing a reported decline in cases, vaccine misinformation, and a leader who has yet to publicly state whether or not he has been vaccinated.
Vaccine distribution has been slower than projected...could this due to a lack of doses, public perception around the state of the pandemic and trustworthiness of the vaccine, the lack of clear messaging from the PM, or a combination of many factors? What impact will this complacency have on the long term recovery of the Indian people?

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India's campaign to inoculate its population of 1.3 billion began on Saturday with medical workers. The country has reported more than 10.5 million coronavirus cases, the second largest caseload after the United States. Credit Credit... Atul Loke for The New York Times

PUNE, India - India on Saturday began one of the most ambitious and complex initiatives in its history: the nationwide rollout of coronavirus vaccines to 1.3 billion people, an undertaking that will stretch from the perilous reaches of the Himalayas to the dense jungles of the country's southern tip.

The campaign is unfolding in a country that has reported more than 10.5 million coronavirus infections, the second-largest caseload after the United States, and 152,093 deaths, the world's third-highest tally.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the vaccine drive on Saturday with a live television address as 3,000 centers nationwide were set to inoculate a first round of health care workers.

"Everyone was asking as to when the vaccine will be available," Mr. Modi said. "It is available now. I congratulate all the countrymen on this occasion."

The government had hoped to inoculate about 300,000 people on Saturday, but government data showed that 165,000 people received a shot. The plan is to give the vaccine to millions more health care and frontline workers by the spring.

At Kamala Nehru Hospital in Pune, a city of about 3.1 million southeast of Mumbai, 100 long-stemmed red roses were stacked neatly on a table beside a bottle of hand sanitizer. Each person registered to receive the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, was to get a rose.

Covishield and another vaccine called Covaxin were authorized for emergency use in India this month.

Neither Covaxin's manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, nor the Indian Council of Medical Research, which contributed to the vaccine's development, has published data proving that it works. In a Covaxin consent form at District Hospital Aundh, one of a handful of sites in Pune where the vaccine was being administered, the manufacturer noted that clinical efficacy was "yet to be established."

Dr. Rajashree Patil, one of the health workers who received the Covishield vaccine at Kamala Nehru Hospital, said she was both excited and nervous. After contracting the coronavirus while working in the government hospital's emergency room in May, she spent 12 days in a Covid ward at another hospital, having lost her senses of smell and taste and experiencing extreme fatigue.

"I'm a little bit worried. Actually we're on a trial basis," Dr. Patil said. "But I am happy we are getting it so we can one day be corona-free."

Another doctor who received the Covishield vaccine at that hospital, Usha Devi Bharmal, said that she had wanted to get a shot to dispel people's fears about coronavirus vaccines. "There are rumors on social media," she said, adding that she hoped to help show that vaccines are a "positive thing."

Mr. Modi has pledged to inoculate 300 million health care and frontline workers, including police officers and, in some cases, teachers, by July. But so far the Indian government has purchased only 11 million doses of Covishield and 5.5 million doses of Covaxin.

Indian television stations showed Dr. Randeep Guleria, the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and a prominent government adviser on Covid-19, receiving a jab on Saturday. It was unclear whether Mr. Modi was vaccinated.

India's rollout, among the first in a major developing country, comes as millions of people in the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and the European Union have received at least one dose.

India's vaccination effort faces a number of obstacles, including a growing sense of complacency about the coronavirus. After reaching a peak of more than 90,000 new cases per day in mid-September, the country's official infection rates have dropped sharply. Fatalities have fallen about 30 percent in the last 14 days, according to a New York Times database.

City streets are buzzing. Air and train travel have resumed. Social distancing and mask-wearing standards, already lax in many parts of India, have slipped further. That alarms experts, who say the real infection rate is probably much worse than official numbers suggest.

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India begins inoculating its 1.3 billion people, starting with health care workers.

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PUNE, India - India on Saturday began one of the most ambitious and complex initiatives in its history: the nationwide rollout of coronavirus vaccines to 1.3 billion people, an undertaking that will stretch from the perilous reaches of the Himalayas to the dense jungles of the country's southern tip.

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In places where there was equal access to the vacine, it will be interesting to see how  the green passport levels the playing field of social and cultural capital. It is not a question of who is eligible for a green passport, rather who is ready and willing to do what is necessary to get one. (--REBECCA)

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Despite the success Israel has had with the vaccine rollout, full success is being held back by what Rosie describes here. You see huge differences in where and how science is being learned, disseminated, shared between members of the same community, and how comfortable individuals feel with science dictating changes in behavior, including getting vaccinated.

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Welfare State- accessibility and distribution 

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Welfare State- accessibility and distribution 

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Israel is benefiting from being a small and relatively wealthy welfare state.  Every single citizen is a member of one of four government funded insurance companies which has made the distribution process run smoothly.  This is similar to the experience in Scandinavian countries.  In general, social medicine can have some limits.  Not everyone lives near a full service hospital, and it can take longer for supplies to reach more far out places.  I can see here how "social capital produces more social  capital."  Also, as mentioned here about Scandinavian countries, Israel was hit quickly because of its social system, but due to the ease of appointment making, getting vaccinated has become a sort of social experience for all ages. -Rebecca

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Low income earners that have lost their jobs and are living on government relief paychecks or business owners (such as restaurant owners) who have had to shut down have undergone significant changes to their economic capital. When they get vaccinated, they can re-enter the workforce and hopefully gain back their economic capital.

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(SOCIAL CAPITAL) - Vasudha S.                            

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(SOCIAL CAPITAL) - Vasudha S.                            

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We live in a community of educated working professionals who have steady jobs and have stable family environments. They are able to keep their kids at home and have chosen remote learning for as long as necessary. They follow rules of social distancing and mask wearing. So, the infection rates are quite low. So, I believe that we will be in a much later group to get vaccinated. Our social capital pushes us to later in line.

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(CULTURAL CAPITAL) -Vasudha S.            Black, Latinx fear of vaccines          

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(CULTURAL CAPITAL) -Vasudha S.            Black, Latinx fear of vaccines          

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In the past, racist, and sometimes dangerous, health policies and clinical experiments have targeted particularly vulnerable Black and brown communities (Tuskegee experimentation on blacks).

In addition to this history, a lot of mistrust around the COVID-19 vaccine has also been generated by the overall chaotic messaging around the pandemic.

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/19/covid-vaccine
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-vaccines-astrazeneca.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR0YAbRE_FE7_rw1QRTw4Q0FGkY-dUeyQWkxP5ip9o12GbFQlCVK8TSPtC8

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Many studies show that black and hispanic communities have been hit the hardest in the past year in comparison to other groups. However, there are nearly twice as many white and asian communities receiving the vaccine over black and brown communities.

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Latino and Black Americans are being vaccinated against Covid-19 at the lowest rates despite suffering disproportionately high levels of serious complications and deaths, new analysis reveals.

Only 3.5% of Latinos and 4.5% of Black Americans have so far received a vaccine shot compared with 9.1% of white Americans and 8.6% of Asian Americans, according to state figures analysed by APM Research Lab.

Indigenous Americans have the highest inoculation rate so far, with 11.6% (one in nine) already having received at least one dose. News of the relatively fast vaccination rollout in Indian Country comes shortly after the Guardian revealed that Indigenous Americans are dying from Covid faster than any other community in the US.
Exclusive: indigenous Americans dying from Covid at twice the rate of white Americans
Analysts warn that the available data is extremely patchy due to poor reporting by many state health departments, but that the trend strongly suggests that access to the Covid vaccines has so far been inequitable.

"Unfortunately, despite the fact that we know Covid-19 has had very disparate impacts, about half of all states currently fail to provide vaccination data by race and ethnicity," said Craig Helmstetter, managing partner of APM Research. "In the states that are providing data, Black and Latino Americans are lagging far behind Asian, white and indigenous Americans.

It was several months into the pandemic that cities and states began releasing racial and ethnic breakdowns of Covid hospitalizations and deaths. A year on, almost half a million Americans have died, yet we still do not know the ethnic background of one in 10 people killed by the virus.

The vaccination rollout got off to a very slow start in the US, hampered by the Trump administration's inadequate preparation and logistical support for states, as well as chronic underinvestment in public health capacity. The pace has picked up, with more than 1.6m doses now being administered every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Joe Biden's national Covid strategy promises to put equity at the heart of the vaccination programme, as his team strives to meet a campaign promise to get 100m doses into arms in his first 100 days in office.

As of 12 February, only 24 states and the District of Columbia had published comparable data about the number and share of their racial and ethnic communities who have received one or both Covid-19 vaccine doses. New York and Illinois, two of the six most populous states, are among those that had not released comparable ethnicity data, making it impossible to track whether promises to ensure equitable access are being kept.

Still, the emerging data suggest that states are failing to deliver equitable access to ethnic minorities.

In Florida, just over 3% of Latino and Black residents have received at least one dose of the vaccination compared with almost 9% of white Floridians. In Texas, 2.8% of Latino residents have received a shot compared with 3.6% of Black residents, 7.2% of white residents and 9.7% of Asian American residents.

In Virginia, 30.5% of indigenous Americans have been vaccinated compared with 5.9% of Black residents and 5.3% of Latinos. Recent polls suggest vaccine hesitancy is low among indigenous Americans compared with other groups. In Washington, 18.5% of Indigenous Americans have received at least one dose compared with just 5% of Black residents, 3.1% of Latino residents and 8.5% of white residents.

Based on the current data, the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania have vaccinated the fewest Latino and Black residents.

More data and better data is needed, but analysts say that disparities in vaccination rates may be partially explained by ethnic differences in priority groups. The oldest have been prioritized by all states, and the white population is significantly older than other ethnic groups.
Topics

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Latino and Black Americans see lowest Covid vaccination rates, new data shows

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Latino and Black Americans are being vaccinated against Covid-19 at the lowest rates despite suffering disproportionately high levels of serious complications and deaths, new analysis reveals. Only 3.5% of Latinos and 4.5% of Black Americans have so far received a vaccine shot compared with 9.1% of white Americans and 8.6% of Asian Americans, according to state figures analysed by APM Research Lab.

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While anti-vaxxers exist all over the world,  Pakistan is one of the 3 countries that still has Polio as an epidemic. Polio drives have been unsuccessful in combating rumours of health problems in children, anti-Islamic labels, and other kind of rumours that have people rejecting vaccines.  With this in mind, how can vaccines be given to areas where health workers are not trusted and local communities are view it as opposed to their culture?
-Mariam K.

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Pakistani authorities have suspended the anti-polio campaign "for an indefinite period" across the country amid increasing violent attacks on polio workers.

An anti-polio drive was launched in all districts of the country on April 22.

The South Asian country's National Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio directed all provinces on Friday to halt the drive, in an effort to protect some 270,000 polio field staff from attacks, Pakistan's newspaper reported on Saturday.

On Thursday, gunmen opened fire on female health workers in the southwestern town of Chaman, killing one and wounding another.

In separate attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, assailants killed two policemen who were assigned to protect a polio vaccination team in the northwest.

"After the Peshawar incident, the uncertain and threatening situation for the frontline polio workers has emerged and we need to save the program from a further major damage," Dawn quoted the EOC as saying in a statement, adding that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (SPEI) partners had backed the move.

"Hence, no further vaccination or catch-up activity will be conducted in any area for this campaign," said the EOC.

The violence coincided with rumors of children suffering from adverse reactions to a polio vaccine.

Read more: WHO launches worldwide effort to completely eliminate polio
Violence and mistrust
Polio is endemic in only three countries in the world - Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Last year, a relatively rare strain was also detected in Papua New Guinea.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease, mainly affecting children younger than five. It can cause permanent paralysis and death, but can be prevented through immunization. The virus is spread through contaminated food and water.

Anti-polio campaigns have faced immense problems in Pakistan, with radical Islamists targeting health teams and people mistrusting the drive in some parts of the country.

Read more: Why did Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation leave Pakistan?

Islamists claim that the US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organized a fake vaccination drive to help track down Osama bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad, where US forces later killed the al-Qaida leader in 2011.

In July 2012, Pakistani authorities had to postpone an anti-polio campaign in the northwestern region of Waziristan after Taliban leaders banned inoculations, claiming the drive was similar to a hepatitis vaccination program run by the imprisoned Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who they say had helped the CIA in the bin Laden hunt.

The same year, the United Nations suspended its polio eradication campaign in Pakistan after the Taliban killed two of its workers in the northwestern city of Charsadda.

At least 100 people have been killed in assaults targeting vaccine teams since 2012.

Read more: Amid Taliban threats, Pakistan hits record polio cases
Fake news
Pakistan's latest anti-polio campaign was also hampered by social media reports and videos claiming numerous children had been killed by the polio vaccine. As a result, thousands of parents refused to allow their children to be inoculated for polio.

Read more: Pakistan: 'No policy to detain parents for refusing polio vaccines'

Health officials say a "pre-planned conspiracy" was responsible for the panic. They say the misinformation has inflamed already existing distrust of anti-polio campaigns, resulting in "a three-fold jump in refusals by parents to vaccinate their children" in the last two years.

Authorities say that some 700,000 children missed polio inoculations in Punjab province alone, putting too many lives at risk.

"Here people have little knowledge, so if they see a professor allegedly from the US or elsewhere [on social media] who is against the vaccine, they are easily convinced," Rana Safdar from Pakistan's National Institute of Health told AFP news agency.

"Now there is a pushback. We need to regain the momentum," he added.

Sherry Rehman, leader of the opposition in Pakistan's Senate (upper house of parliament), said in a message on Twitter that "the polio vaccine is effective and safe ... Parents everywhere in the country must NOT hold back. The vaccine is safe."
Every evening, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.

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Pakistan suspends polio vaccine drive after health worker attacks | DW | 27.04.2019

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Pakistani authorities have suspended the anti-polio campaign "for an indefinite period" across the country amid increasing violent attacks on polio workers. An anti-polio drive was launched in all districts of the country on April 22.

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In this segment by Trevor Noah, he discusses the various reasons that communities that have highest cases have received less vaccines. Racial disparity in healthcare has a long history of segregation and redlining. In the USA Today article about Chicago, there's a sense of distrust by the people who aren't yet sure they even want to get the vaccines. The example of " pharmacy deserts" reflect the lack of healthcare access in these communities. Another issue is that working class are less likely able to take time off, commute the distance to receive healthcare.
-Mariam Khan

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Black Vaccine Inequality - If You Don’t Know, Now You Know | The Daily Social Distancing Show

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Who is aware of how to make appointments, local availability, and eligibility  process?
Vaccine distribution in England is being handled by local governments. So a the effectiveness of the the vaccine distribution depends on the local governments' own efficacy. For example, Nottingham is leading in highest vaccines. My own relatives who have received the vaccine in England were able to do so because they were informed by their friends ( who were doctors). So not all communities are equally aware of when they can make appointments or where to go for the vaccines.
-Mariam K.

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This website provides charts that show which countries are vaccinating their residents. I think it will be interesting to watch and see how different types of capital reflect vaccine rollout - Gabriel S

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Our vaccination dataset uses the most recent official numbers from governments and health ministries worldwide. Population estimates for per-capita metrics are based on the United Nations World Population Prospects. Income groups are based on the World Bank classification. A full list of our country-specific sources is available at the bottom of this page, and we also answer frequently-asked questions there.

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In various US cities and states, vaccine acquisition is directly related to one's racial and economic status. For example, in Chicago -- a city that has deeply segregated neighborhoods and zip codes -- the vaccine rollout has been predominately focused in nearly all-white neighborhoods. This intersects with economic capital, too, as the zip codes that have received higher percentages of the first dosage are also wealthier (although the map below does not reflect wealth).
- Gabriel S

(Image source: USA TODAY/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/health/2021/02/12/data-analysis-chicago-vaccine-rollout-reflects-us-racial-disparities/4418978001/)

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Those located in cities with high economic capital (non-essential workers) were able to locate out of the city during the pandemic. These are also the same people who, because of their double economic and social capital, are now moving back to get the vaccine. -Rosie FS

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However, politicians who rejected masks are now using their symbolic capital to be the first to receive the vaccine. -Rosie FS

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Global initiative under the WHO and others to create equitable access to COVID vaccines. However, many of the wealthy countries are hoarding their vaccine doses: 3/4 of all covid vaccines have gone to the 10 richest countries. Here is Dr. Yamey, a professor of Global Health, discussing the connection between COVAX and economic capital. -Rosie FS

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Center for Policy Impact in Global Health -CPIGH

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CNN Newsroom With John Vause   2 07 48 pm   2 13 40 pm

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Those that argue against mask restrictions, social distancing guidelines, and are anti-Vax are rejecting the social capital held by elite science groups which control how science is disseminated. They believe these groups are connected to the State and therefore social capital imposes on their individual liberties. -Rosie FS

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Large metropolitan cities (such as NYC) were among the first to be hit by the virus. City dwellers with high social capital who were not socially distanced at the beginning of the pandemic were able to learn much quicker to be socially distanced than rural areas, for example. (See link to the right about how social capital accumulates with herd immunity). -Rosie FS

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Scandinavian countries, for example, have more social capital through programs such as universal healthcare. They were hit quickly and then recovered quickly from the virus (due to their social system). Now, these countries are in less dire circumstances than countries without these social benefit programs but are among the first to receive the vaccine. The link below explains how social capital creates more social capital (first to face the virus, first to herd immunity, first to receive the vaccine) -Rosie FS

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What will it take to finally halt the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.? To answer that question, we've created a simulation of a mock disease we're calling SIMVID-19.

When you click "Run Simulation" above, you are witnessing how a disease can spread through a population and how increased levels of vaccination can stop it in its tracks.

We've chosen to simulate a fake disease since there are too many unknowns to simulate the course of COVID-19. There are common features in how any infection spreads. When enough people are immune - through vaccination or natural immunity - a population achieves herd immunity. The disease stops spreading efficiently and starts to fade away.

How quickly a community gets to herd immunity depends on a number of factors. We've illustrated some major ones in the scenarios that follow.

1) A more infectious variant takes over

What happens if a more infectious strain of SIMVID-19 predominates in a community? You can see in the simulation that even at a 75% vaccination rate, many people in our imaginary community of 400 will still get infected.

It looks like it will take higher vaccination rates to achieve herd immunity against the more infectious strain of SIMVID-19. This is a real concern with emerging variants of the coronavirus, including the strain first detected in the U.K., which is now spreading rapidly in the United States.

There's always an element of chance in how diseases spread, as you can see each time you rerun these simulations.

2) A population is already heavily exposed

The coronavirus pandemic has hit some communities harder than others, leaving in its wake some degree of natural immunity. This scenario assumes a lot of people are already immune to SIMVID-19 through a previous infection.

For this illustration, we've decided that SIMVID-19 immunity will persist for the duration of our simulation. You can see how higher levels of immunity - along with a high vaccination rate - would help a community reach herd immunity. For the coronavirus, we don't know what percentage of people who have been infected are immune or how long that immunity lasts.

3) A population has low levels of initial immunity

You can see in this scenario how SIMVID-19 can spread more easily in a population where few people are immune at the start of an outbreak. It is harder to achieve herd immunity in this scenario, and increased levels of vaccination are key. When it comes to the coronavirus, some communities have lower levels of preexisting immunity, and scientists think that the immunity people do have may fade over time.

Takeaways for COVID-19

In our SIMVID-19 scenarios, 75% vaccination rates were able to kick the imaginary disease in all but one scenario - that of the more infectious variant. For the U.S. to tame its coronavirus outbreak through herd immunity, scientists expect that somewhere between 70% and 85% of the population must be immune.

Unfortunately, we can't predict exactly what vaccination rate will be needed because there are many questions about the coronavirus we simply can't answer.

For example, people who are vaccinated may still pose some risk of spreading the virus, even though the vaccines protect them from serious illness. And no vaccine is 100% effective, so some vaccinated people will still get ill and could still pass on the disease. You can see this in our model as dark gray vaccinated individuals turn infected pink from time to time.

And though we do know that perhaps 120 million Americans have already been infected, we don't know how long immunity following infection will last. Finally, there is a concern that some variants now spreading around the world will render vaccines less effective.

One thing that's evident from this simulation (and real life) is that the faster the population is protected by vaccination the better.
Methodology For illustration purposes, our simulation of SIMVID-19 simplifies a lot of the details of how diseases like COVID-19 spread. For example, each cell in our hexagon grid has only a maximum of six other "people" that it comes in contact with, and there's a fixed chance that an infection will spread from one cell to another. Vaccination reduces that chance but doesn't eliminate it completely (as is true in real life). This means that if you rerun the simulations over and over, you may get a lucky or unlucky roll from time to time. To keep these outliers from creating confusion, the first simulation run in each scenario starts from an identical configuration. Daniel Wood and Carmel Wroth contributed to this report.

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How Herd Immunity Works - And What Stands In Its Way

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What will it take to finally halt the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.? To answer that question, we've created a simulation of a mock disease we're calling SIMVID-19. When you click "Run Simulation" above, you are witnessing how a disease can spread through a population and how increased levels of vaccination can stop it in its tracks.