Do y’all realize America is privatizing and outsourcing COVID vaccinations because it won’t fully fund and actively defunds public health? https://twitter.com/riccimike/status/1354108649447145474

The grocery stores and pharmacies discussed in that tweet (Walmart, Giant, Rite Aid, Safeway) do have some reach, but redlined Black neighborhoods have vastly fewer of those locations than greenlined White neighborhoods.

So then you introduce vaccine apartheid into the equation.

But again, because America and urban areas are so committed to defunding public health, your local health department doesn’t have a strong and pre-existing community health worker corp. It doesn’t have the reach, staffing, and surge capacity that’s needed to handle COVID.

And the most foolish part of America’s vaccine administration strategy to date is that it relies completely on people traveling to hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies.

We have to have a strategy where nurses and community health workers go OUT into communities to reach people.

There are millions of people without vehicles, with limited mobility, and who wrestle with transit apartheid.

Also there are folks who need other resources and needs to be addressed like housing, food, energy, mental health.

So we need a holistic & relational approach to this.

But I’ll blame public health a little bit here too. Like I told people at Johns Hopkins the other day, we have got to make community organizing and advocacy a competency.

We train public health “professionals” who don’t know how to engage and interact with local communities.

Since this is blowing up...it just so happens I do have something to sell.

My book officially comes out today!

It's part history book, part public health text, part racial equity guide, and part activist manual.