‘WE ARE ONLY AS SAFE AS THE LEAST SAFE’
CT city works to get COVID vaccine to vulnerable groups
DANBURY — Local providers are working with community groups to better reach vulnerable communities who may struggle to get access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Many of those folks have an established trust and relationship with people in the community, so we would want to leverage that trust,” said Dawn Myles, vice president population health operations for Nuvance Health, a seven-hospital network that includes Danbury Hospital.
In Danbury, this means educating underserved communities about the vaccine, helping people schedule appointments, and planning pop-up clinics with these trusted groups or places — like a church, officials said.
The state wants at least 25 percent of available vaccine supply to go to residents from “priority” ZIP codes, including the 06810 ZIP code in Danbury. This is part of the effort to ensure vulnerable communities, especially people from racial minorities, get the vaccine.
It remains a challenge for the public to navigate the vaccine registration system, so one local nonprofit is signing up clients and residents personally.
Clients can call the Connecticut Institute for Communities, known as CIFC, which will register them for an appointment through its federally qualified health center. The organization has dedicated slots per day for targeted groups.
“It’s making it more convenient for them and getting them through the door,” said Katie Curran, chief operating officer and general counsel.
Many of the organization’s clients and some staff fit the demographics the state wants to attract, she said. On the day CIFC’s early childhood education staff were vaccinated, 17 percent who got their dose were Hispanic, she said.
The organization has also attracted this demographic to its COVID testing site throughout the pandemic.
“It’s sort of a natural progression from what we already do and the services we provide,” Curran said.
The clinic has vaccinated around 35 percent of patients from the “priority” zip codes on days when the organization has had scheduled appointments for patients, she said. This percentage is much lower when clinics are open to anyone registering through the federal vaccine system.
Clients may also fill out a form on CIFC’s website with their information, and the organization schedules appointments for them or calls them if extra doses are available, Curran said.
Nuvance and the Community Health Center, a federally-qualified health with a location in Danbury, are collaborating with antipoverty agencies, faith communities and the hospital clergy to identify patients.
“We’ve worked with other high-risk agencies in the community for them to give us patients that are having
trouble getting in, so we can schedule them as walk-ins or pull them into open slots that we have,” Myles said.
The Community Health Center is running the mass vaccination clinic that opened last Thursday at the Danbury Fair Mall, but Danbury Hospital plans to move its appointments there beginning March 19. Hospital employees are already working with health center staff and the National Guard to administer the doses.
Although the clinic is a drive-up, patients may walk up. That has been rare, however, said Amy Taylor, vice president of the Community Health Center’s western region.
“We want to accommodate people on foot, as well, because we don’t want it to
be limited to just people who have cars,” she said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who visited the site on Monday afternoon, said the outreach will help bridge the “unacceptable disparities” in health care in communities of color.
“That is so absolutely critical to all of us because we are only as safe as the least safe,” he said. “In other words, this vaccine and its variants will spread and create new mutants and variants unless we make everybody safe and vaccinate everyone.”
Educating and expanding on vaccines
Taylor said she expects the clinic at the mall to have vaccinated more than 1,000
people by the end of Monday, when almost 500 doses were distributed. The goal is to eventually vaccinate 1,000 people a day.
CIFC has been vaccinating patients at its 120 Main St. location, but plans to expand in a couple weeks to the former Danbury Medical Group building at 132 Main St.
This bigger site is in the “heart” of downtown, next to the COVID testing site and near a bus line, Curran said.
About 500 to 550 people are vaccinated each week, but the plan is to distribute more doses when the organization moves to the larger space, Curran said.
Providers hope to hold mobile and pop-up clinics, but the challenge is that the general public can sometimes sign up for these.
“We’re trying to figure out: how do we make sure that when we stand up popup events that they really are being attended by the people of highest need for that kind of approach,” Myles said.
CIFC already held a popup clinic a couple weeks ago at the Super 8 Motel, where homeless individuals have been staying. About 95 first doses were distributed that day, Curran said.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine should make it easier for CIFC to hold mobile clinics because only one dose is required, Curran said.
The mall clinic largely distributes the Moderna vaccine, but patients who got their first dose of Pfizer at Danbury Hospital will be able to get their second dose of that type at the mall, Myles said.
The site may get Johnson & Johnson, but it’s unclear how much of this vaccine the state can expect, she said. It’s likely that vaccine would go to local doctor’s offices, she said.
CIFC plans to hold educational forums to encourage people to get vaccinated, which was effective among staff, Curran said.
The organization has worked with United Way to present vaccine information specially for racial and ethnic demographics and plans to target families in the early education programs, where more than 90 percent of children are Hispanic, she said.
“It’s really finding people in the community from the community that have been vaccinated and can speak to their experience,” Curran said.