Black, Asian and Latinx people in the Lehigh Valley and across Pennsylvania are less likely to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 than white and non-Latinx people as of mid-April, data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health shows.
Government, religious and medical leaders came together to discuss vaccine hesitancy among Muslims and other minority groups across the commonwealth in Allentown on Wednesday.
Department of Health Acting Secretary Alison Beam joined leaders from St. Luke’s University Health Network, Rabiul Chowdhury of the Muslim Aid Initiative and Imam Mohammad Elshinawy of the Islamic Education Center of Pennsylvania to tackle the topic, which has been a focus of the department over the course of the past few months, at the Sacred Heart campus.
As of Thursday, 3,779,961 partial vaccinations and 2,125,826 full vaccinations have been administered in Pennsylvania.
With 442,310 first doses of the vaccine set to be sent to Pennsylvania from the federal government this week, Beam noted that questions will become more frequent, and that education is imperative to help in the goal to eliminate the pandemic.
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