2 cities hit hard, two divergent vaccine fates

CENTRAL FALLS, RI (AP) – Mario Valdez, his wife and their 18-year-old son were fully vaccinated for COVID-19 this month as part of a special effort to make every resident of Central Falls, the Rhode Island community, the heaviest. ent. 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. ”

About 80 miles across the state line is Chelsea, a city in Massachusetts that was an early center of the virus. Like Central Falls, it is a small former industrial city that is overwhelmingly Latino. Residents of both cities live in dense rows of triple houses and apartment complexes, providing the workforce for their respective state capitals Providence and Boston.

But the happiness of the two cities can no longer differ during the COVID-19 vaccination.

Mannix Resto, high school at Chelsea, fears the slow vaccinations of Massachusetts will still prevent students from attending classes in person. The 15-year-old says no one in his family has been vaccinated yet, as the state focuses on frontline workers and residents who are elderly or have serious health conditions.

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

Rhode Island began offering vaccinations to elderly residents of Central Falls in late December and has gradually expanded to accommodate anyone 18 years of age or older who lives or works in the city.

Nearly a third of the adults in the city received at least one dose of vaccine and about 16% were completely vaccinated according to state data.. Health officials say the city of about 20,000 has seen a clear decline in COVID-19 cases as a result.

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

Under increasing pressure, Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced that efforts to reach out and raise public awareness are aimed at less-affected minority communities, but critics say bold action is needed to fill 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, residents of Black and Latino die three times as fast from the virus of whites in the state by some standards, and Chelsea remains one of the worst-hit states, with a COVID-19 positivity rate higher than that of the state.

“It’s frustrating,” said Gladys Vega, executive director of La Colaborativa, a non-profit community in Chelsea that is part of a new government-wide coalition. calls for greater vaccine equality. “Chelsea have proven time and time again that we support the economy. But we have been neglected for decades. ”

Some states and provinces have taken different approaches to ensure that vaccines are distributed fairly among communities of color, but too many government leaders are reluctant to fully accept the strategies, says Dr. Bernadette Boden-Albala, Dean of the Public Health Program at the University of California, Irvine.

Until communities that are hit hard are properly addressed, their residents will continue to spread the infection and ensure the virus continues, she and other experts say.

“If the pandemic is a fire, the vaccination is the water,” Boden-Albala said. “You must bring it where the fire burns the most, otherwise you will never put it out.”

To be sure, Rhode Island and Massachusetts leaders have both been criticized for the slow pace of vaccinations in their states. And vaccine deployment has not been smooth in Central Falls yet.

Mayor Maria Rivera, who took office in January, says the state did not provide additional resources or manpower for the deployment in Central Falls, which went bankrupt during the 2008 recession and received from the state in 2013.

The city’s most important vaccination center, which is held every Saturday in the high school gymnasium, is an almost entirely voluntary operation.

Rivera says the city’s volunteers are going to register residents from house to house who do not want to register online or by telephone for appointments. They also had to illegally reassure residents living in the country that they would not be targeted by immigrant enforcement officers for a shot, she says.

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

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

Across the Chelsea line, Vega’s organization has partnered with a community health center to launch a public vaccination room at its Broadway office.

Vega says local attorneys have been fighting hard to bring the site to the city. The only mass vaccination site the state has opened so far in a color community in Boston area is about 10 miles from Chelsea, in the historic Black Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, she and other attorneys say.

Unlike vaccination sites in Central Falls, Chelsea’s sites are restricted by the rules for Massachusetts, which were only expanded last week. to persons 65 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 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 out that he had the clinic mostly to himself when he received his first dose. “It went pretty smoothly,” said the 82-year-old Chelsea resident. “I prepared myself to be a trial after hearing about places where people could not get appointments, or not.”

On the same day on Broadway, the opening of the clinic was largely answered with shrugs and indifference, suggesting that officials have a long way to go to win over skeptical residents.

“If the government tells me to take the vaccine, then I’m taking it. But at the moment I do not want it, ”said Cesar Osorio, a 30-year-old construction worker, washing his clothes in a self-service laundromat down the block. ‘Spaniards, we have our own medicine. We do not want vaccines. ”

Maria Rivera, mayor of Central Falls, is already dreaming of the return of beloved community events, such as the salsa nights in the city.

She says the city is vaccinating most residents by summer. “I look forward to the day we don’t have to wear face masks,” Rivera said when she recently volunteered on the high school grounds.

Resident Mario Valdez has equally modest hopes. Now that he and his family have been fully vaccinated, they plan to fly to his native Guatemala in July, a trip they undertake almost every year to visit family members.

“It’s going to be great,” he said. “We love it.”