Deadline Detroit | Vaccination rates by census tract also show income, racial divide

A few years ago, a so-called “racial point card” of the United States have gone around, especially in the Detroit metro. He illustrated, literally at a glance, the amount of racial self-segregation that is prevalent in the region, with stark changes to 8 Mile Road, Mack Avenue and other border areas between Black Detroit and white suburbs. .
A new visualization rendered by Bridge Michigan, this one showing vaccination rates for Covid-19, de facto serves as another race map.
Here is the metropolitan area:
Red areas have the highest vaccination rates and green ones the lowest.
At a glance, the picture is obvious, with whiter Oakland County on its way to full redness, as well as Washtenaw and western Wayne County.
When you zoom in a little closer, the divisions are clear and bright:

Grosse Pointes stand out, as does Dearborn, both well above the overall herd immunity threshold of 70%. In Oakland County, Pontiac is green and Birmingham is red, and even much of Black Southfield has green space.

It should be noted that the local health departments have done an excellent job of setting up vaccination centers, both in the city center and in neighborhoods, churches, etc., so the lack of access is not the problem entirely. On the contrary, as Flint Mayor Sheldon Neely says:
“People are afraid of the unknown. People don’t know what might happen to them after they take the vaccine,” Neely said in Bridge Michigan.
In Genesee County, data shows that most predominantly black neighborhoods in Flint have a vaccination rate of just over 30% for those 18 and older, compared to 46% for the county and 51% statewide. .
This pattern follows in other African-American communities in Michigan, from Detroit and Pontiac to Muskegon and Saginaw, underscoring a problem that experts say is rooted in access, poverty and distrust of officials. of public health.
You can find the map and spend an hour playing with it, here.