In a letter to vaccine providers Sunday, a top health official wrote that patients who qualify to receive a vaccine shouldn’t have to present official identification, a move praised by a Colorado bioethicist.

The guidance is part of a broader push by the state to reach underserved communities, who have limited access to getting IDs. In the letter, state COVID incident commander Scott Bookman told providers that requiring identification may “unintentionally create barriers to access.”

That paperwork, he added, “can exacerbate distrust and accessibility inequities for many critical groups. This requirement is a barrier for people who are unable to get identification or have trouble accessing services that issue IDs, such as those who are undocumented, experiencing homelessness, have a disability, or others on the margins of society who are unable to get an ID.” 

Polling data indicates that some minority communities – particularly Latino and Black – have higher levels of vaccine hesitancy than their white peers. Similarly, research from previous fights about voter ID laws indicate Black voters were less likely to have government-issued IDs. Anywhere from 25% to 11% of voting-age Black Americans said they didn’t have photo identification, according to various research from previous years. That was significantly higher than white voters.

Identification also would prove a barrier for undocumented Coloradans. Last week, at a town hall about how to improve vaccine uptake in minority and underserved communities, providers of color specifically discussed concern among undocumented residents, who feared that coming forward to get vaccinated may put them at risk.

That forum further discussed the need for the public health and medical communities to work to build trust within minority communities.

What’s more, Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and their access to the vaccine is paramount to slowing the deadly impacts of the virus in Colorado.

“We must be responsive to disparities that have been so pervasive throughout the pandemic – disparities that have plagued society for years upon years but are ever more prominent during crises,” Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the director of the state Department of Public Health and Environment, said in a statement. “To achieve equity, we need to take deliberate action. To not add to that suffering, we must eliminate barriers to fair vaccine distribution. We know that our providers share in our goals to reach all communities.”

The letter also warned providers that they weren’t to give vaccine preference to their already established patients, nor were they to exclude those who couldn’t pay. Failing to abide by those rules, as well as to the identification guidance, would lead the state to bar those providers from providing vaccines.

Matt Wynia, a doctor and the head of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, praised the state’s ID guidance. He said that “every state should be doing this” and noted some of the state’s biggest outbreaks “have been in communities that include some people without documents.”

“We need to focus like a laser on getting people vaccinated who are (1) most likely to catch this virus, (2) people who are most likely to spread it to others if they catch it, and (3) those who are most at risk of needing hospital care if that catch it, so we save lives and avoid overwhelming our hospitals,” he wrote in an email.