SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) – Samia Dridi, who was born, raised and works as a nurse in Saint-Denis, fears for her impoverished city and recalls how the coronavirus took a particularly deadly path through the diverse area north of Paris. cut. a cemetery for French kings buried in a majestic basilica.
Dridi and her sister accompanied their frail 92-year-old mother to a vaccination center in Algeria for the first of two shots to protect against COVID-19 days after it was opened to people over 75 last week.
While the red tape, the permit requirements and the issues of the country delayed the vaccination of France nationwide, the Seine-Saint-Denis region is facing special challenges to ward off the virus, and to get people vaccinated when it’s their turn.
It is the poorest region on the French mainland and has had the highest increase in mortality in the country last spring, mainly due to COVID-19. Up to 75 percent of the population are immigrants or have immigrant roots, and the population speaks about 130 different languages. Healthcare is among equals, with two to three times fewer hospital beds than other regions and a higher percentage of chronic diseases. Many are essential workers in supermarkets, public sanitation and healthcare.
The coronavirus was initially widely seen as the great equalizer, infecting rich and poor. But studies have since shown that some people are more vulnerable than others, especially the elderly, people with other long-term illnesses and the poor, who often live on the fringes of ordinary society, such as immigrants who do not speak French.
Dridi, 56, who has been a nurse for more than three decades, feels relieved that there is currently no significant evolution of the virus in her city. But she does not forget what happened when the pandemic first hit.
“We had whole families with COVID,” she said. Many have several generations living together in small apartments, which according to experts is an aggravating factor that is common in the region.
Despite the gloomy memories, local officials are struggling with special challenges to speak to a population where many do not speak French, about access to regular medical care and, as in many of France, distrust the safety of the vaccine.
Next month, a bus will travel through the region, especially at street markets, to provide information on vaccination. In addition, about 40 “vaccination ambassadors” who speak several languages need to be trained to reach out about vaccinations as well as “fake news” around them from March.
An example of this is Youssef Zaoui (32), an Algerian living in Saint-Denis.
“I heard that the vaccination is very dangerous, more than the virus,” Zaoui sat in the shadow of the basilica. She proves that he does not have to worry about the virus: the butcher by the road and the man who sells cigarettes in the area. They were there at the beginning of March ‘and they are still here. “I, I’m still here,” he said.
Is there a chance that the vaccine could change the tide on the inequality reflected in death statistics for the region?
“Before the vaccine becomes a major equalizer, everyone needs to be vaccinated,” Patrick Simon said. He co-authored a study on the vulnerability of minorities in Seine-Saint-Denis to COVID-19 in June. But he said the challenges for marginalized communities to access health care continues, “so these inequalities will also be reflected for the vaccine.”
While the French healthcare system is meant to provide accessible medical treatment for all, bureaucratic demands and co-payments often scare off new immigrants or the poor. Government health guidelines do not always reach those outside the system.
As a nurse at a municipal health center, Dridi foresees the poverty that results in vulnerability to the coronavirus.
“I give an injection, shoot, put on a bandage … and some say, ‘I live in a car, I’m on the street,’ ‘she said.
The misery was not evident in the vaccination center where Dridi’s mother received her shot – among 17 people who opened in the region last week, and where Saint-Denis’ happiest residents were seen in private homes on a recent visit. Some penetrated the center of the cane or held it by an arm. One couple showed up on a scooter. Everyone was eager to be vaccinated.
They were some of the lucky ones. Appointments were reduced after dosing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as elsewhere in France and Europe.
“I’m happy to be vaccinated today,” said a woman who burst into tears. She was infected with COVID-19 in April at a private clinic and lost her mother to the virus in October after contracting it in a hospital where she was treated after a fall.
The woman, who did not want to be named, told Dridi and her sister to look after their mother because “she is your darling.”
For Dridi, it could be a game changer to see people die from COVID-19.
“Some people say no (to be vaccinated) because they have no contact with death,” Dridi said. But death, “that’s what makes you react.”