PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Even though more than 107,000 vaccine shots have been administered in Delaware, health officials are worried by a recent trend.
“We are very concerned that we are not reaching all Delawareans in an equitable way at this point,” said Division of Public Health Director Dr. Karyl Rattay.
In particular, she pointed in the direction of minority groups.
“Only about 5% of Black Delawareans have been vaccinated and only about 2% of Hispanic Delawareans have been vaccinated to date,” she explained.
Race is not known in 31% of people who got their shots in the state.
Gov. John Carney plans to reach out to providers in the coming days to make sure that information is given. He also wants to fix the other issue of not enough minority groups getting vaccinated through better outreach.
“We’re now going to be targeting communities in our state where we have more vulnerable populations, minority populations, low-income populations that we're not seeing at some of the large clinics that we're getting,” he explained.
“We really would like to see more (minorities) get on the registry,” added Dr. Rattay, “but it also really is an important signal to us we need to find other ways to reach people in their communities.”
Some solutions include allocating more doses to pharmacies and medical providers in vulnerable communities and helping low-income seniors who aren’t so tech savvy get registered.
Delaware partnered the Wilmington Housing Authority for the latter.
“We targeted some of those already and are learning more effective ways, partnering with faith communities, with community populations to make sure they’re getting vaccinated as well,” said Carney.
He had some good news to share during his Tuesday briefing with positive cases, hospitalizations and percent positive all declining.
Delaware is also in the top 10 in the country in getting vaccine received into people’s arms.
“We actually could handle a lot more vaccines if the federal government was making them available,” Carney said.
He also just learn the state is getting 22% more supply over the next three weeks, which he calls a “critically important improvement.”