1 Mobile van helps seniors register for vaccine,
BRIDGEPORT — More than two dozen people braved the cold, rainy weather this week to take advantage of the mobile COVID- 19 registration van at Harborview Towers on East Washington Avenue in the city’s East Side.
“This is very nice,” said 77year- old Stephen Geronimo as he finished registering for an appointment to get vaccinated. “It was very easy, and they were very accommodating.”
Andres Vazquez, 66, was waiting his turn to get into the van. “I’m glad it’s here,” he said. “I don’t know how I would have gotten a chance to put my name in to get the vaccine if it wasn’t here.”
Both men said they don’t have access to a computer to register online and Vazquez, who said he recently suffered a fall and needs a walker to get around, said he isn’t able to get to other sites to register.
The mobile classroom — typically used by Career Resources for job training and recruitment — was at the senior housing site to provide hands- on assistance to older residents seeking to use the federal Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS, to schedule an appointment for their COVID- 19 vaccine.
A town- by- town map released by the state this week showed that cities, including Bridgeport, had low percentages of their populations vaccinated. In the state’s largest city, 4 percent of its 144,399 population had received at least a first inoculation. The state’s data also showed slightly more than 23 percent of the 6,914 people 75 and over in Bridgeport had received at least the first vaccination.
Carla Wright, service coordinator of the Bridgeport Housing Authority, which manages Harborview, said they had 30 people register to be vaccinated by 9: 30 Friday morning.
“A lot of the elderly who live here do not have emails or are capable of using a computer, so we are helping them register,” she said.
Wright said initially when they rolled up in the large van people at the elderly housing facility were reluctant to come out.
“Some still said they don’t want to get a vaccine, others said they were going to go through their primary physicians,” she said. “There are a couple of people in the building who have COVID and want to be vaccinated but can’t come out because they are infected.”
But once those who were initially reluctant saw other people coming out to the van, they came out too, she said.
Wright said they are taking the information on each senior and setting up an email account for each one on the vaccine registry website. Each senior is then given a slip of paper with their vaccine appointment date.
Councilwoman Maria Valle, who represents the East Side neighborhood, said she was excited to see the van there.
“This is awesome, last week I came here and picked up and elderly woman and took her to get vaccinated because she had no way to get out on her own,” Valle said.
Councilwoman Aidee Nieves said it is going to take a massive effort to get seniors in the city registered to be vaccinated.
“This will be very helpful,” she said of the van.
Harborview is operated by the Bridgeport Housing Authority, Park City Communities, whose low- income tenants, given their pre- existing health issues and service sector jobs, can be particularly vulnerable to COVID- 19.
The authority’s executive director, Jillian Baldwin, said on Friday that the mobile van will be at another of her sites — Fireside senior apartments — on Feb. 11 or, if there is snow, Feb. 15.
“This brings the opportunity to their front doorstep,” Baldwin said.
She said the authority is also looking at ways it can help transport tenants to vaccination sites.
“We’re working to see if we can get buses or vans or supplement ( public transportation) costs,” she said, adding it would also be great if the city could find a way to provide vaccinations at public housing developments.
“We are absolutely open to that,” Baldwin said. “That would be a wonderful opportunity for housing residents.”
She said many are eager to receive their shots and the authority has been working to disseminate as much information as possible about the coronavirus vaccines in order to convince the skeptics.
“We definitely have some older residents, they ( say), ‘ Cancer’s been around for a while. There’s no cure for that. How do we have the cure for this so quickly? There definitely is some trepidation and general distrust of the system.”
Staff writer Brian Lockhart contributed to this report.