Lt. Gov of Texas Blames Unvaccinated Black Folks for the Surge in Texas
In a very convoluted effort to correlate the increase in COVID-19 cases in southern states to the democrats, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick erroneously stated that the surge was due to unvaccinated people who are democrats and mostly African Americans. If you replay the clip over and over, the same picture emerges of a White republican male using his position to implant racist ideology into the conversation. Fortunately, the data is clear that his statement was false. The data from the Texas Department of Health is very clear on the problem. Texas still needs more people to get vaccinated.
The Texas Tribune analyzed the demographic and geographic trends of Texans who have not gotten their shot yet. Here are some of the main findings:
In Texas’ largest counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis — neighborhoods with the highest proportions of Black and Hispanic populations are some of the least vaccinated areas.
Neighborhoods with median incomes below the county’s median income also hold vaccination rates lower than that of the county’s.
Rural counties have consistently lagged behind the state’s fully vaccinated rate.
While the Texas Department of Health is showing that the lowest overall numbers for vaccinations is lowest in the Black population, the rate for those who have the virus and hence able to spread the virus is highest among the white population at 32.1 % and Hispanics at 37%.
Instead of playing the blame game and continuing to politicize this public health crisis, we need to take ownership in our communities and work with getting out the important message of getting the vaccine and wearing a mask to stop the spread.
Source: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83
