As America races to vaccinate against COVID-19, line jumpers and racial disparities in distribution emerge

Bobby is one of the lucky ones in the majority black and Latino Los Angeles neighbourhood of Vernon Central.

The 55 year-old proudly shows off the band-aid still fresh on his arm from his COVID vaccination.

“I just got it yesterday,” he told the ABC.

Only one in every 27 people have been vaccinated in the area, despite a staggering one in five having contracted COVID-19 over the past year.

Travel a little further north however, and those numbers flip.

In the neighbourhood of Bel Air, a majority white community where median incomes are around five times the average in Vernon, topping $US200,000, one in four people have been vaccinated, while one in 24 have had coronavirus.

It’s a pattern playing out not just in Los Angeles, but across the…