Unless states and cities prioritise vaccinating non-whites, they are likely to fall behind. Yet if they do, that could create a backlash and result in legal challenges. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, such strategies would need to use “racially neutral vaccine allocation criteria” that could “lawfully prioritise populations based on factors like geography, socioeconomic status, and housing density that would favour racial minorities de facto, but not explicitly include race.”

This is problematic, because nonwhites are also more hesitant about getting the vaccine anyway. According to the Association for a Better New York, a non-profit, white New Yorkers are more eager to get the vaccine as soon as possible—78%, compared with 39% of black residents and 54% of Hispanic and Asian residents. This mistrust need not necessarily be a big obstacle, though. According to the same survey, people’s interest in getting vaccinated grows sharply once some people they know have been vaccinated. For Asians the propensity to get the jab increases by 26 percentage points, for Hispanics by 29 points and for African-Americans by 34 points.

“It is important to first reach those who want the vaccine, and educate others in the meantime,” says Dr Leana Wen of George Washington University. Christopher Marte, a community organiser in the Lower East Side in New York City, recommends a grassroots door-to-door approach. To reach the elderly black, Hispanic and Asian residents in his community, Mr Marte has joined local organisations, such as food banks and pensioners’ centres, to walk the hallways, slide flyers under doors and call landlines. Trust has built over time. People “started to know people who went to the local testing sites and had a good experience,” Mr Marte says.

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