PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Maine’s effort to track racial equality in its coronavirus vaccine distribution may be complicated by a high rate of nonresponses on the data collected from those who have already gotten inoculated.
About 40% of people who received vaccinations did not provide information about their race, the Bangor Daily News reported.
More than 92,000 people in the state have received at least the first dose of the vaccine. The data that’s available shows 96.6% of the people who reported their race or ethnicity were white. That’s slightly more than the percentage of the state’s total population that is white.
Black resident represent more than 5% of coronavirus cases in the state, although they represent only 1.4% of the population of the state at large, Maine public health authorities have reported.
The director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Nirav Shah, said the state is working to improve the data collection.
“We want to make sure we are reaching populations who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” Shah said.
Lack of data makes it harder to know if the state’s vaccine distribution program has been equitable, Maine Equal Justice director of campaigns and health care advocacy Kathy Kilrain del Rio told the Bangor Daily News.
In other news related to the pandemic in Maine:
NEW ADMINISTRATION
Shah also said he sees an opportunity for a smoother rollout of coronavirus vaccines under the new presidential administration.
Shah has expressed frustration with the federal Vaccine Administration Management System, which is used to coordinate coronavirus vaccination efforts. He described it Tuesday as “a situation where the practice did not live up to the promise.”
However, the newly arrived Biden administration has shown “a desire to work with states on almost every level,” Shah said. He said he’s hopeful that will lead to a better organization vaccination drive.
More than 120,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Maine, but demand remains far ahead of supply.
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THE NUMBERS
The average positivity rate in Maine has trended downward in recent weeks.
The latest average positivity rate in Maine is 4.51%. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Maine the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test specimens using data from The COVID Tracking Project.
The seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Maine did not increase over the past two weeks, going from 6.38% on Jan. 13 to 4.51% on Jan. 27.
The Maine CDC has reported more than 38,000 positive cases of coronavirus and 567 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
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EARLY CLOSINGS
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said Thursday she would end the 9 p.m. closing time for businesses on Feb. 1. She cited improving public health metrics for the decision.
The early closings were designed to help slow transmission of coronavirus.
“We are beginning to round the corner on the post-holiday surge of COVID-19. With these improved public health metrics, and with the holidays behind us, it is appropriate to remove the early closing time requirement,” she said.
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VACCINE STORAGE
Shah said Thursday that an investigation has shown more than 4,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine that were not stored at the correct temperature are still viable. He said the state will work with health care providers to get the vaccines administered.
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