By Govind Persad
Recently, Missouri expanded phase 2 vaccination eligibility with the goal of addressing disproportionate COVID-19 impacts.
Specifically, Missouri’s policy applies to “Disproportionately Affected Populations,” which is further defined as: “Populations at increased risk of acquiring or transmitting COVID-19, with emphasis on racial/ethnic minorities not otherwise included in 1B.”
This presents a much-debated and often misunderstood question I explore in a forthcoming University of Illinois Law Review article: can COVID-19 vaccine allocation legally recognize the outsized burden of cases and deaths that racial/ethnic minority communities have borne during the pandemic?