Table of Contents COVID Racial Disparities Loom Large in Rural Counties An assisted living employee in Mississippi receives a COVID-19 vaccine from a Walgreens pharmacist in January. As federal and state government officials ramp up vaccination efforts, White people outpace people of color in getting vaccinated. Rogelio V. Solis The Associated Press CLARKSDALE, Miss. — In the early days of the pandemic, Greenwood, Mississippi, native Jackie Hawkins, a long-time rural public policy expert, expected that rural people of color would be hurt at higher rates than their urban and White counterparts. As the pandemic set in, fear and hesitancy settled into Black communities relatively quickly, she said, because of the lack of information around the coronavirus, and because of years of fraught relationships with health care providers.