2 cities very affected, 2 divergent destinations in the deployment of vaccines

CENTRAL FALLS, RI (AP) – Mario Valdez, his wife and 18-year-old son were completely vaccinated against COVID-19 this month as part of a special effort to inoculate all Central Falls residents, the Rhode Island community hardest hit by the pandemic.

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

Approximately 80 miles (80 kilometers) across the state line is Chelsea, a Massachusetts city that was an early epicenter of the virus. Like Central Falls, it is a small old industrial city that is overwhelmingly Latin. Residents of both cities live in dense rows of houses and three-story apartment complexes, which provide labor power to their respective state capitals of Providence and Boston.

But the fortunes of the two cities could not be more different during the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Mannix Resto, a high school sophomore at Chelsea, fears the slow pace of Massachusetts vaccinations will continue to prevent students from attending classes in person. The 15-year-old says no one in his family has yet been vaccinated, as the state focuses on front-line workers and residents of legal age or with serious health problems.

“I just want to know how long it will last,” Resto said earlier this month as he walked with a friend across Broadway, Chelsea’s busy main street. “It’s been a year. We can’t continue to live like this. “

Rhode Island began offering vaccines to elderly Central Falls residents in late December and gradually expanded it so that anyone 18 years of age or older living or working in the city is eligible.

Nearly one-third of the city’s adults have received at least one dose of vaccine and about 16 percent are fully vaccinated, according to state data. Health officials say the city, with about 20,000 residents, has seen a significant drop in COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, public health experts, civil rights groups and immigrant activists have been complaining for months that the state is doing almost nothing to make sure black and Latino residents are inoculated.

Under growing pressure, Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced outreach and public awareness efforts targeting affected minority communities, but critics say bolder action is needed to make up for lost ground.

So far, white residents have received 66% of all doses in the state, while black residents have received about 5% and Latino residents 4%, according to state data. Meanwhile, blacks and Latinos die from the virus at a triple the rate of whites in the state by some measures, and Chelsea remains one of the most affected 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 nonprofit community that is part of a new state coalition calling for greater vaccine equity. “Chelsea have shown time and time again that we support the economy. But we have neglected ourselves for decades.”

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

Until the affected communities are properly addressed, its residents will continue to spread the infection, ensuring the virus persists, according to her and other experts.

“If the pandemic is a fire, vaccination is water,” Boden-Albala said. “You have to take it to where the fire is burning the most, or you’ll never put it out.”

Of course, leaders in Rhode Island and Massachusetts have faced grueling criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations in general in their states. And the deployment of vaccines has not been so smooth in Central Falls.

Mayor Maria Rivera, who took office in January, says the state has not provided additional resources or manpower for deployment to Central Falls, which went bankrupt during the 2008 recession and came out of the public administration in 2013.

The city’s main vaccination site, held every Saturday in the institute’s gym, is an almost entirely voluntary operation.

Rivera says city volunteers have been door-to-door registering residents who don’t want or can’t sign up for online or phone appointments. They have also had to reassure residents living in the country illegally that they will not be targeted by immigrant control agents to look for a shot, she says.

“We just want them to show up,” Rivera says. “We’re not going to divert anyone.”

According to data provided by Rivera’s office this week, nearly 40% of the doses have gone to Latinos and 27% to whites from three of the city’s top vaccination sites. Another 23% of vaccine recipients did not provide their race or ethnicity, and demographics were not available for other vaccine locations, the office said.

Across Chelsea State Line, the Vega organization has partnered with a community health center to launch a public vaccination site at its Broadway office.

Vega says bringing the site to the city was a hard-fought hit by local advocates. The only mass vaccination site the state has opened so far in a colorful community in the Boston area is about 10 miles from Chelsea, in Boston’s historic Black Roxbury neighborhood, according to her and other advocates.

And, unlike Central Falls vaccination sites, Chelsea sites are limited by Massachusetts eligibility rules, which were only expanded last week. to people 65 years of age or older, as well as people with two or more serious medical conditions.

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

Earlier this month, David Evans was surprised when he had the first dose to find the clinic for himself. “It went really well,” the 82-year-old Chelsea resident said. “I was preparing for this to become an ordeal after hearing about places where people could not have an appointment or had no shots.”

On the same day, on Broadway, the opening of the clinic was largely shrugged and indifferent, suggesting that officials had a long way to go to win over skeptical residents.

“If the government told me I had to get the vaccine, I would get it. But at the moment, I don’t want it, ”said Cesar Osorio, a 30-year-old construction worker who washes clothes in a self-service laundromat on the street. “Spaniards, we have our own medicines. We don’t want vaccines. “

The mayor of Central Falls, Maria Rivera, is already dreaming of the return of beloved community events, such as the city’s summer sauce nights.

She says the city is about to inoculate most residents in the summer. “I’m wishing we didn’t have to wear face masks,” Rivera said as she recently volunteered at high school.

Resident Mario Valdez has equally modest hopes. Now that he and his family are fully inoculated, they are planning to fly to his native Guatemala in July, a trip they make almost every year to visit relatives.

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