The Oakland Coliseum mass vaccination site meant to serve low-income residents and communities of color hit hardest by the pandemic appears to be underperforming on that goal so far, according to demographic data released this week.
About 41% of doses at the site have gone to white people, 20% have gone to Latinos and 4% have gone to Black residents. Asians made up 27% of vaccinations. The data was released Tuesday by the California Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which co-run the site.
When compared to the demographic makeup of the city of Oakland, the data shows that white and Asian residents were overrepresented by about 6 and 12 percentage points, respectively. Black and Latino residents, on the other hand,were underrepresented by nearly 20 and7 percentage points, respectively.
The site is open to anyone in California who meets the state eligibility requirements for vaccination, but its location was meant to draw people from nearby neighborhoods who have endured higher infection rates than many other parts of Oakland and Alameda County. Throughout the pandemic, Black and Latino residents in particular have had much higher rates of disease than other groups.
“I don’t think that there was ever specifically a number goal that we were trying to reach, but the goal is to match the community we serve,” Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for Cal OES, said. “I think it is looking pretty good, but there’s always room for improvement.”
The demographic data release comes a few weeks after vaccine group access codes meant for underserved communities were misused by healthy, privileged Bay Area residents who thought they were taking vaccines that would otherwise expire. The group codes are no longer in use, according to the state.
In contrast to the Coliseum data, just 27% of vaccines at a similar federal- and state-run site at California State University Los Angeles went to white people, and more than 36% went to Black and Latino residents.
Dr. Neil Powe, chief of medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, said the data showed
