Boston, MA – The Vaccine Equity Now! Coalition is today responding to the news that Massachusetts is about to reach Governor Baker’s goal of fully vaccinating 4.1 million people. Coalition Co-Chairs Dr. Atyia Martin of the Resilient 21 Coalition, Myran Parker-Brass of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, and Carlene Pavlos of the Massachusetts Public Health Association issued the following statement:

“Massachusetts has made great progress on vaccinating a large percentage of the Commonwealth’s overall population, but a high quantity of shots administered does not ensure equity. Our work is far from over. Especially as new variants emerge and become dominant in the United States, it is essential that we act with urgency to ensure residents of Massachusetts’ hardest hit communities receive the funding, resources, education and access to the vaccine that they need.

“Massachusetts’ vaccination program has been deeply inequitable from day one. As of June 17, 56.5% of white residents were fully vaccinated compared to 40 percent of Black residents and 38 percent of Latinx residents. This is despite the fact that Black and Latinx residents have been disproportionately impacted by high COVID-19 hospitalization rates. Many of the 20 hardest hit communities continue to have vaccination rates that lag behind the rest of the state. The state must not pretend that these disparities don’t exist.

“While the Baker administration celebrates reaching its 4.1 million goal, we urge the Governor to double down on efforts to close these racial disparities that have persisted since the beginning of the vaccination program. One step that the administration can take immediately is to identify benchmarks to measure its progress on vaccine equity, which our coalition of racial justice, immigrant justice, public health and civil rights organizations has been demanding for four months now. To truly have a nation-leading vaccination program, we need to ensure that all of our communities are protected.”