2 cities hard hit, 2 divergent destinies in the deployment of vaccines

CENTRAL FALLS, RI (AP) – Mario Valdez, his wife and their 18-year-old son were fully immunized against COVID-19 this month as part of a special effort to immunize every resident of Central Falls, La Rhode Island community hardest hit by the pandemic.

“I feel happy,” said the 62-year-old school bus driver shortly after receiving his second and final dose. “Too many people here have COVID. Better to be safe. “

Chelsea, a town in Massachusetts that was one of the early epicenter of the virus, is about 80 miles across the border. Like Central Falls, it’s a small old industrial town that’s overwhelmingly Latin. Residents of both cities live in dense rows of three-story houses and apartment complexes, supplying manpower to their respective capitals of Providence and Boston.

But the fortunes of the two cities couldn’t be more different when the COVID-19 vaccine rolled out.

Mannix Resto, a sophomore at Chelsea High School, fears that slow vaccinations in Massachusetts continue to prevent students from attending classes in person. The 15-year-old says no one in his family has been vaccinated yet, with the state focusing on frontline workers and residents who are older or suffering from serious health problems.

“I just want to know how long this is going to last,” Resto said earlier this month as he walked with a friend on Broadway, Chelsea’s bustling Main Street. “It’s been a year already. We cannot continue to live like this.

Rhode Island began offering vaccines to elderly residents of Central Falls at the end of December and has gradually expanded it so that anyone 18 or older who lives or works in the city is now eligible.

Almost a third of adults in the city have received at least one dose of the vaccine and about 16% are fully immunized, state data shows. Health officials say the city of about 20,000 residents has seen a marked drop in COVID-19 cases as a result.

In Massachusetts, meanwhile, public health experts, civil rights groups and immigrant activists have complained for months that the state is not doing enough to ensure that black and Latino residents are vaccinated.

Under mounting pressure, Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced outreach and public awareness efforts targeted at hard-hit minority communities, but critics say bolder action is needed to make up for lost ground.

White residents have so far received 66% of all doses in the state, while black residents have received about 5% and Latino residents 4%, according to state data.. Meanwhile, black and Latino residents are dying from the virus three times faster whites in the state by some measure, and Chelsea remains one of the hardest-hit communities in the state, with a higher COVID-19 positivity rate than the state.

“It’s frustrating,” said Gladys Vega, executive director of La Colaborativa, a Chelsea community-based non-profit organization that is part of a new statewide coalition. calling for greater equity in vaccines. “Chelsea have shown time and time again that we support the economy. But we have been neglected for decades.

Some states and counties have taken different approaches to ensure vaccines are equitably distributed to communities of color, but too many government leaders are reluctant to fully embrace the strategies as a necessity, says Dr. Bernadette Boden-Albala, dean of the public health program at the University of California to Irvine.

Until hard-hit communities are properly treated, their residents will continue to spread the infection, ensuring the virus persists, she and other experts say.

“If the pandemic is fire, vaccination is water,” Boden-Albala said. “You have to get it where the fire burns the most or you will never put it out.”

Admittedly, the leaders of Rhode Island and Massachusetts have both faced strong criticism over the slow pace of vaccinations in their states. And the vaccine rollout has not gone smoothly in Central Falls.

Mayor Maria Rivera, who took office in January, said the state had not provided additional resources or manpower for the deployment to Central Falls, which went bankrupt during the 2008 recession. and emerged from state receivership in 2013.

The city’s main vaccination site, held every Saturday at the high school gymnasium, is almost entirely voluntary.

Rivera says city volunteers went door-to-door to check in residents who were unwilling or unable to register for appointments online or by phone. They also had to reassure residents living illegally in the country that they will not be targeted by immigrant rights enforcement officers for seeking a shot, she said.

“We just want them to show up,” Rivera says. “We are not going to refuse anyone.”

According to data provided by Rivera’s office this week, nearly 40% of doses went to Latinos and 27% to whites at three of the city’s major vaccination sites. Another 23% of those vaccinated did not indicate their race or ethnicity, and demographic data was not available for other vaccination sites, the office said.

Across the state in Chelsea, Vega’s organization has partnered with a community health center to launch a public vaccination site in its Broadway office.

Vega said bringing the site to the city was a relentless achievement for local advocates. The only mass vaccination site the state has opened to date in a community of color in the Boston area is about 10 miles from Chelsea in Boston’s historic Black Roxbury district, she and others say. defenders.

And unlike the Central Falls vaccination sites, the Chelsea sites are limited by Massachusetts eligibility rules, which only widened last week. people 65 years of age or older, and people with two or more serious health problems.

The clinic has vaccinated more than 900 since it opened on Feb.4, but the numbers are expected to rise this week as more people in the state now qualify, according to the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, which operates the site.

Earlier this month, David Evans was surprised to find that he had the clinic mostly to himself as he received his first dose. “It went pretty well,” said the 82-year-old Chelsea resident. “I was preparing for it to be an ordeal after hearing about places where people couldn’t get appointments or didn’t get vaccinated.

On Broadway the same day, the clinic’s opening was greeted widely with shrugs and indifference, suggesting officials have a long way to go to win over skeptical residents.

“If the government told me I had to take the vaccine, I would take it. But for now, I don’t want any, ”said Cesar Osorio, a 30-year-old construction worker washing his clothes at a self-service laundry down the block. “Spaniards, we have our own medicines. We don’t want vaccines.

Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera is already dreaming of the return of beloved community events, like the city’s summer salsa nights.

She says the city is set to vaccinate most residents by the summer. “I look forward to the day when we don’t have to wear a face mask,” Rivera said while volunteering at the high school site recently.

Resident Mario Valdez has similarly low hopes. Now that he and his family are fully immunized, they plan to fly to their native Guatemala in July, a trip they make almost every year to visit relatives.

“It’s going to be awesome,” he said. “We love it over there.”