A striking feature of the Covid-19 pandemic is the disparities in who contracts the disease, who dies from it, and now, who gets vaccinated. Around the country, white people are getting vaccinated at higher rates than people of color. In Mississippi, Black people have received 15% of the Covid vaccinations, but they account for 38% of coronavirus cases and 42% of deaths in the state. This disparity is also evident in Vermont: 9.1% of white Vermonters have received the vaccine, 7.3% of Hispanic Vermonters, 6.6% of Asian Vermonters and 6.1% of Black Vermonters — and only 1.9% of Native American Vermonters.

Natalia Linos has argued that prioritizing vaccines based on age “risks building in inequities by race and ethnicity.” Linos is a social epidemiologist and executive director at Harvard’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. She has worked internationally with the U.N. Development Programme and as a scientific advisor in the Commissioner’s Office at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 2020, Linos took her advocacy into a new arena: she ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Massachusetts to replace outgoing Rep. Joe Kennedy. On this Vermont Conversation, Linos discusses Covid-19 disparities and why she believes science should play a larger role in politics.