Press release content from PR Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation. The Rockefeller Foundation Launches $20 Million Initiative to Increase Covid-19 Vaccination Rates Among Communities of Color April 13, 2021 GMT NEW YORK, April 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rockefeller Foundation announces the launch of a historic $20 million Equity-First Vaccination Initiative to improve the vaccination rate among communities of color, which have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Representing less than one-third of the 74 million people who are now fully vaccinated in the United States, communities of color are twice as likely to die from Covid-19 and three times as likely to be hospitalized as white Americans. To close this gap, the Foundation will initially collaborate with five organizations to deploy equity-first, hyper-local public health interventions in five U.S. cities: Baltimore, Md.; Chicago, Ill.; Houston, Texas; Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif. During the second phase of the Initiative, the Foundation will collaborate with several national organizations to take lessons learned from the five cities and ensure that at least 70 million people of color are vaccinated by July 2021.