Most countries still vaccinate only the elderly and health workers, but one U.S. city hit hard by the coronavirus already offers doses to anyone 18 years and older.
© Joseph Prezioso
A woman is vaccinated on February 13, 2021 with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.
© Joseph Prezioso
Nearly 700 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine are expected to be administered on 13 February 2021 at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island.
Central Falls – with a population of 20,000 people in Rhode Island – is home to a large Spanish population, many of whom are undocumented.
© Joseph Prezioso
People leave after receiving their vaccinations at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island on February 13, 2021
The city is one of the most populous places in the United States and is one of the areas on Rhode Island that is worst affected by the pandemic.
The small East Coast government recommends that vaccines be given only to high-risk groups such as frontline workers and people over 75.
But Central Falls is going its course and opening vaccinations for all adults.
“Everyone who lives or works here is a priority,” Mayor Maria Rivera told AFP during a mass vaccination.
The pandemic spread like wildfire through the close-knit community of Central Falls, where it is common for several families to live under one roof.
The city is more than 66 percent Latino and 13 percent black.
Central Falls recorded the highest number of positive cases and hospitalizations in Rhode Island.
Gallery: Residents of the nursing home where the first COVID-19 outbreak occurred in the US are reportedly completely vaccinated after receiving the second dose more than ten months after the first COVID-19 case (INSIDER).
More than 3,500 cases were reported, with 21 deaths and 190 hospitalizations in January.
The health toll has also been exacerbated by an economic one.
“At the beginning of Covid … there were so many residents who lost their jobs, and they had no money and could not apply for benefits,” Rivera recalls.
When vaccines became available in December, the city was offering injections older than 75, then older than 65, before lowering the age threshold to 50 and reducing it to 18 in recent weeks.
– ‘Right thing to do –
“If we do not solve the problem, where the problem is, we are just going to continue to spread this disease,” Rivera said.
The city prepared on Saturday to administer about 700 doses to Central Falls High School.
Mayor Rivera’s team went from door to door to make sure residents had all the information they needed, including in Spanish and Cape Verdean Portuguese.
“It was the first vaccination for the general public, probably the first in the country,” said Eugenio Fernandez Jr., founder of Asthenis, a pharmacy that works with low-income neighborhoods.
When Suzanne Wallace, a nurse, learns of Central Fall’s problems, she knows she has to come voluntarily to give shots.
“It felt like the right thing to do,” she told AFP.
Dozens of residents sat inside the school’s gym on chairs more than six feet apart, waiting to be observed after receiving their shots.
Thirty-year-old Angelica Romero was among residents to be injected.
“I was really scared to come, to be honest with you,” said Romero, whose father had just spent three months in hospital with a coronavirus. Her mother reported her for the shot.
“We are really eager to have a safe environment for him as much as possible,” she told AFP.
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