More than half of adults in the Queens enclave of Breezy Point, which is 91% White, had received at least one dose by Tuesday, the city’s highest rate. That compares with just 9% in Corona, Queens, and Brownsville, Brooklyn, which include New York’s least-vaccinated ZIP codes — and some of the highest Covid death tolls.

City and state officials have blamed disparities on the hesitancy of some people to take the shot. But council members, community leaders and health-care workers say refusal numbers, which are declining, don’t tell the whole story.

“It is absolutely about access,” said Sheena Wright, chief executive officer of United Way of New York City, who is working to provide testing and vaccine awareness. “Black people are showing up at the hospital at the end stage of the disease, and that’s the first time they’ve even gotten a test. The same is true with the vaccine.”

Racial Divide
Initial vaccine shipments went to health workers via hospitals and health-care systems. When eligibility expanded, more sites opened, but because hospitals remained a primary dispenser, New Yorkers with their own doctors went to the front of the line. Many without insurance don’t have that luxury.

Only 4% of Upper East Side residents are uninsured, compared with 12% in East Harlem, according to the city’s health department.

“When you get sick, you go to the clinic and see who’s available, or you go to the emergency room if it’s really bad,” said Wright.  “They’re not connected to a health home where they actually have their doctor.”

Public-hospital leaders said reserving appointments for existing patients served their minority clientele:   “We're actively calling people,” Mitchell Katz, head of the city system, said last month.

But the same practice was happening at prominent private institutions on the affluent Upper East Side: Lenox Hill, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and Mount Sinai. “Having a doctor that's affiliated with a medical institution is an incredible privilege,” said Councilman Ben Kallos, who represents parts of the neighborhood.

Scheduling websites remain a major hurdle: Nearly a fifth of Harlem residents lack internet service, according to U.S. Census data. That leaves wealthier residents with strong connections to their physicians at an advantage. Upper East Side residents Tipp and Gloria Gilbert, 78 and 70, were grateful when their primary-care doctor booked them an appointment at a state-run site at the Fort Washington Armory in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, where Covid positivity rates hit 10% in January.

Shot of Wealth
That same month, Cuomo hailed the armory as a way to combat inequality. “We are making sure New Yorkers of color aren’t left behind,” he said. But it quickly became a magnet for people from richer neighborhoods as well as elsewhere in New York state and even New Jersey. “They're very well organized inside,” Gloria Gilbert said. “They move you right through.”