2 badly hit cities, 2 different fates in the roll-out of vaccines

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

About 50 miles across the state line is Chelsea, a Massachusetts town that was an early epicenter of the virus. Like Central Falls, it is a small former industrial town that is predominantly Latino. Residents of both cities live in dense rows of three-part houses and apartment complexes, which provide the workforce for their respective capitals Providence and Boston.

But the fortunes of the two cities couldn’t be more different during the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Mannix Resto, a sophomore in Chelsea, fears the slow rate of vaccinations in Massachusetts will continue to prevent students from attending classes in person. The 15-year-old says no one in his family has been vaccinated yet, as the state targets front-line workers and residents who are older or have serious health problems.

“I just want to know how long it will take,” Resto said earlier this month while walking with a friend on Broadway, Chelsea’s busy high street. ‘It’s been a year. We can’t live like this. “

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

According to state data, nearly a third of adults in the city have received at least one dose of vaccine and about 16% have been fully vaccinatedHealth officials say the city of about 20,000 residents has seen a marked drop in COVID-19 cases as a result.

In Massachusetts, 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 mounting pressure, Governor Charlie Baker recently announced efforts and public awareness targeting hard-hit minority communities, but critics say more vigorous action is needed to make up for lost ground.

White residents have received 66% of all doses in the state so far, while black residents have received about 5% and Latino residents 4%, according to state dataMeanwhile, black and Latino residents are dying from the virus three times as fast of whites in the state by some measures, and Chelsea remains one of the most affected communities in the state, with a COVID-19 positivity rate higher than that of the state.

“It’s frustrating,” said Gladys Vega, executive director of La Colaborativa, a Chelsea nonprofit that is part of a new statewide coalition. advocate greater equality in vaccines. “Chelsea has shown time and again that we support the economy. But we’ve been neglected for decades. “

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

Until the hard-hit communities are properly addressed, their residents will continue to spread the infection so that the virus persists, they and other experts say.

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

Certainly, the leaders of Rhode Island and Massachusetts have both faced devastating criticism about the slow pace of vaccinations in their states in general. And the vaccine rollout didn’t all go smoothly in Central Falls.

Mayor Maria Rivera, who took office in January, says the state has not provided additional resources or manpower for the rollout in Central Falls, which went bankrupt during the 2008 recession and went into receivership in 2013.

The town’s main vaccination site, held every Saturday in the high school gymnasium, is an almost entirely volunteer job.

Rivera says city volunteers go door to door to register residents who are unwilling or unable to sign up for appointments online or by phone. They also have to assure residents living in the country illegally that they will not be targeted by immigrant enforcement officials for the search for a shot, she says.

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

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

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

Vega says bringing the site into town was a hard-won feat by local lawyers. The only mass vaccination site the state has opened so far in a Boston colored community is about 10 miles from Chelsea, in Boston’s historically Black Roxbury neighborhood, they and other advocates say.

And unlike vaccination sites in Central Falls, Chelsea’s locations are limited by Massachusetts admission rules, which only expanded last week to those aged 65 or older, as well as those with two or more serious medical conditions.

The clinic has vaccinated more than 900 since it opened on Feb. 4, but the number is expected to rise this week as more people in the state 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 when he got his first dose. “That went pretty smoothly,” said the 82-year-old Chelsea resident. “I was preparing to make this an ordeal after hearing about places where people couldn’t get appointments or where they didn’t have photos.”

That same day on Broadway, the clinic’s opening was met with much of a shrug and indifference, suggesting officials still have a long way to go to win over skeptical residents.

“If the government told me to take the vaccine, I would take it. But right now, I don’t want it, ”said Cesar Osorio, a 30-year-old construction worker who washes his clothes in a self-service launderette down the street. “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, such as the town’s summer salsa nights.

She says the city is well on its way to vaccinating most residents by summer. “I’m looking forward to the day when we don’t have to wear face masks,” Rivera said while volunteering in high school recently.

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

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