The COVID19 pandemic has caused a global emergency and taken a drastic toll on people’s lives. With the approval of the first vaccines by European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the turn of the years, European governments have been rushing to introduce vaccination roll-out plans. Under various national circumstances (often in a competition with political, cultural, and sport elites), risk groups have been granted priority.
Soon after COVID19 reached Europe it was clear that it exacerbates existing divides caused by socio-economic status, race and ethnicity. The increasing scientific evidence demonstrates that the virus has exerted a disproportionate burden on racialized and ethnic minorities living under detrimental social, economic, political, and environmental conditions. They share a higher burden of the infection and are dying in larger numbers and at a younger age.
Although the scientific evidence on race and ethnicity as the COVID19 risk factors is unequivocal and increasing, there is an embarrassing silence from governments, public health experts, and the scientific community on the situation of Roma, the “largest ethnic minority group in Europe.”
We should urgently start to collect Roma-specific data in hospitals and in their communities. The data on the COVID19 impact among Roma have been signalled so far only through reporting by civil society and the media. The fact that when it comes to Roma, that governments do not commit to even a simple review of existing medical data, is itself a form of serious neglect. This is short-sighted as hidden pockets of undetected and uncontrolled virus spreading among segregated Roma communities will pose a serious risk to any national effort to mitigate the pandemic. However, without public scrutiny and evidence collection, governments will not consider Roma specific targeting in rollouts of vaccines and digital health technologies. Therefore, as the single advocacy priority, civil society organizations should aim to ensure that Roma inclusion policies are a substantive part of any COVID19 recovery strategies at national and European level.
