Despite having one of the lowest median household incomes in the state, an aging population, and scoring high on the Center of Disease Control’s social vulnerability index, the Gov. Andrew Cuomo administration apparently chose to remove Chautauqua County from contention for a federally supported vaccination site, according to an article published by NBC News.

The reason? As far as the Cuomo administration was concerned, the residents of Chautauqua County were born with the wrong skin color.

According to NBC, state officials told the White House that “there were better places than Chautauqua to achieve the White House goal of vaccinating more (minorities).”

The news angered many in the region, prompting a response from Cuomo’s office. “It is false any plans for a mass vaccination site in Chautauqua County were canceled — the state is unaware of any such plans for such a site. None existed,” the state told media outlets.

At first glance, the statement may read like a firm denial, but a more nuanced examination reveals something different.

The statement is carefully worded to deny that “plans” for a vaccination site in Chautauqua County ever existed. The NBC article never suggests that plans were made, only that Chautauqua County appeared near the top of a list of sites and New York state officials convinced the White House it shouldn’t be considered. Rather than addressing the claims of the NBC article, Cuomo’s office seems to have constructed a straw man argument for itself to deny.

The statement from the governor’s office also “selected areas that best fit the criteria for increasing equitable vaccination access in predominately minority communities where access is lowest, hesitancy rates are the highest, and vaccination rates are below average.”

In reality, each of the four counties — Erie, Monroe, Albany and Westchester– that were selected for the vaccination centers had a vaccination rate above the state’s average. Chautauqua County clocked in at a below average at the time of this news.

We’ve already seen that, even though their statement claims they did, state officials did not place a heavy emphasis on locations that were most socially vulnerable and had the lowest vaccination rates. That, by the state’s own admission, leaves just one other criterion: “Predominantly minority communities.”

It might sound like a noble thing to prioritize regions with heavily minority populations, but there is a flip side of that coin: It necessitates the deprioritizing of heavily white areas, even when they are among the poorest and most vulnerable.

It’s almost as if treating people differently is a terrible practice that should have ended a long time ago.

Jacob Harp is a Westfield resident.