California is among the worst states in terms of vaccinating vulnerable populations

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Abraham has spent the past few months calling on state officials to request doses of vaccine for black and brown people in southern Los Angeles, developing vaccination sites that have received patients who have entered the household, hosting mass vaccination events with animators and conducting mobile vaccination fleets in neighborhoods where residents have no transportation.

Abraham, the director of vaccines at Kedren Community Health Center, said he now vaccinates 5,000 people a day and fills a void in a community that might otherwise be neglected.

“We broke down every barrier between people and their vaccines,” Abraham told CNN. “Without an appointment, it’s okay. There’s no internet or email, phone or transportation, I can’t walk, speak or see, I can’t speak English, no documents, no shelter – none of this was a barrier.” .

California remains one of the states with the worst disparities in vaccinating its Latino population, despite efforts like Abraham’s and a state-mandated mandate allocating 40% of vaccine doses to disadvantaged communities. According to state data, 20% of vaccine doses were given to Latin Americans, who represent 39% of the population and 56% of cases. And 3% of the vaccines were given to people of color in California, who represent 6% of the population and 4% of cases. Meanwhile, whites received 29% of vaccines and accounted for 20% of cases and 37% of the population.
Health advocates say misinformation about the vaccine and lack of access have been key reasons for California’s racial inequities. Now, they are urging the state and its partners to step up vaccination efforts in communities of color to prevent growing disparities when all California adults become eligible for the April 15 shooting. Some fear that residents with reliable internet, transportation and the ability to take off will continue to outdo the poor black and Latino communities that have been among the most affected by Covid-19.
California officials were blown away earlier this year when a vaccination program for seniors living in black and Latino communities was abused by outsiders who obtained the special group codes needed to schedule appointments.
Teachers at a private school in Los Angeles received Covid-19 vaccines - even though they were not eligible according to county guidelines
Governor Gavin Newsom responded by saying that group codes are being abused and that the program will switch to individual codes. About a week later, the Newsom administration announced that it was allocating 40% of the vaccine doses to the affected communities.

“Vaccinating the most affected communities across our country is the right thing to do and the fastest way to end this pandemic,” Newsom said last month.

A “defective” vaccine release

Dr. Manuel Pastor, director of the Institute for Action Research at the University of Southern California, said that while the state is improving its vaccination efforts for more people of color, initial vaccination programs have been “deeply deficient.” .

Pastor said many of the sites did not take into account essential hourly workers, who are mostly people of color, residents without internet or smartphones and families without vehicles.

“It was a system designed to produce vaccine inequity,” Pastor said.

Pastor said that if California wants to reduce the racial gap in vaccinations, it needs to hire more employers so people can feel comfortable quitting their jobs, building more sites on public transportation routes, and appoint trusted messengers who can convince Latino residents that vaccination programs are not connected to immigration authorities.

Larry Green receives a Band-Aid from registered nurse Teresa Frey after receiving the second dose of Modern Covid-19 vaccine at the Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church UCC last month in Los Angeles.

Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the Pan-Ethnic Health Network in California, said California needs to keep its focus on equity in the coming weeks as many residents are expected to compete for vaccine programming once all adults are eligible.

If there is a sufficient amount of vaccine for all adult residents, the state should work with community partners to get photos in neighborhoods with lower vaccination rates, she said.

“Unfortunately, we are not seeing progress in closing this gap, so we really want to see the state looking for more to better understand why we are not seeing a change over time,” Savage-Sangwan said. Because we would expect a certain time when we put a significant part of the doses.

Meeting people where they are

Leading organizations across the country have sprung up to help residents book appointments with vaccines, many of which are only available online through a lengthy registration process.

Groups like Get Out the Shot: Los Angeles hope to remove barriers to getting these meetings together by mobilizing their network of volunteers to help people in the city find a hit. Co-founder Elizabeth Schwandt, who lives in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, said the group met in early February amid concerns about accessibility to programming.

“All existing systems are based on a good internet connection, a printer and the means to know that these vaccines are available,” Schwandt said. “Even the wisest people around us were fighting, so I knew there was going to be a huge gap.”

The group uses a hotline and an email address, which people can contact if they need assistance booking a photo or understanding the state’s eligibility levels. Schwandt said the group has about 400 volunteers who speak at least nine different languages ​​and that together helped more than 10,000 people book appointments.

However, with vaccine eligibility opening up widely, Schwandt hopes the group will be able to step up its volunteering efforts, as an influx of people looking for vaccines can create more barriers for disadvantaged communities.

“It’s going to be harder for the people we’re trying to help – we don’t anticipate that our work will retire,” she said.

Some black communities in the Los Angeles area continue to see disparities because there are no pharmacies or health care facilities within a reasonable distance and many families do not have Wi-Fi access, said Rhonda M. Smith, executive director of the Black Health Network.

There are also people of color who are hesitant to take pictures. Smith said some buy myths about the vaccine or are concerned about the national history of racism in health care. She said communities need to expand their efforts to promote accurate vaccine information that assures people of color that there are guarantees to prevent the Tuskegee experiment again.

“There are a lot more regulations and protections for patients these days,” Smith said. “But there are some people who are just resilient and will never do it.”

Meanwhile, Abraham continues to launch several vaccination programs in South Los Angeles, so that when people of color are ready to be vaccinated, they have easy access. Recently, he collaborated with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science – a historic black college – to create a vaccination program in Compton, a city with a large population of blacks.

Abraham said that in order to close the gap in vaccine equity, health care providers will need to meet with people in church parking lots, parks, beaches and workplaces. However, the challenge is that Kedren needs more doses, volunteers, vehicles and the ability to store more vaccines, he said.

“There are a lot of moving parts and it’s very complicated, it’s frustrating,” he said. “But the commitment we made and that’s what we need to do to do it right.”

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