A 28-year-old white man has filed a discrimination lawsuit against his home state of New Hampshire, claiming he was denied a coronavirus vaccine on the basis of race.
The federal complaint was filed with the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Civil Rights on behalf of the unidentified man on Tuesday.
It details how the man, who is diabetic and at an elevated medical risk if diagnosed with Covid-19, was met with an odd response when trying to book his vaccination appointment, the Daily Mail reported.
When he called the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley on April 2, a recorded message said that the appointments were ‘fully subscribed for people of color’, according to the complaint.
He was able to get his vaccination a month later on May 2, but the complaint said the state should be held accountable for its ‘blatant discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin’.
According to the complaint, the state used millions in federal funding in a ‘discriminatory manner’.
It also detailed when Public Health Council Director Alice Ely said she was ‘thrilled’ to be able to vaccinate ‘so many of our neighbors who identify as black, Indigenous or a person of color’. That was an ‘insult to the many people, especially those at elevated medical risk, who were forced to wait behind younger healthy college students simply because of their race, skin color, and national origin’, the complaint states.
The complaint demands that the US Department of Health and Human Services launch a review for compliance and withhold funding from the state HHS and the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley until they state in writing they won’t discriminate based on race, the Daily Mail reported.
‘Although it is unclear if the state continues to discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, at least as late as June 27, 2021, the state’s main Covid vaccine website continued to state that “appointments are limited” and “dependent on (vaccine) supply”, which left open the door to state discriminating against whites,’ the complaint reads.
New Hampshire’s coronavirus vaccine rollout happened in five stages. Those who were first eligible were high-risk healthcare workers, first responders and older adults living in residential care settings.
The next groups who were eligible included those 65 years and older, certain medically vulnerable people who are at a higher risk and some people who work with medically vulnerable individuals.
The complaint alleges that 10% of available vaccines were set aside for ‘disproportionately impacted populations’ and that the state relied upon Community Vulnerability Index, a think tank, to determine who would receive the vaccine before others, based on race.
According to the index, minorities were identified as ‘all persons except white, non-Hispanic’ and the complaint claims the state relying on the CCVI’s ‘patently racist stereotype’ that non-white people are ‘less-resilient’ than white people in order to justify deprioritizing just white people for the jabs.
Researchers have long studied the role that race plays in medicine, and the topic has been at the forefront of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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