The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
TAKE IT WHERE PEOPLE ARE
City works to address demographic challenges as it rolls out vaccine
NEW HAVEN — As the city continues to ramp up its vaccination program, local and health officials are pulling out all the stops to get the word out to seniors aged 75 and older — particularly residents of color who have been disproportionately affected by COVID .
But, as it is across the state and nation, it’s proving to be a challenge. Supply and access remain issues, officials and community leaders said, despite extensive outreach efforts in New Haven and vaccination clinics around the city.
During a recent 90-minute visit to city’s cavernous new vaccination facility in the Floyd Little Athletic Center at James Hillhouse High School, a reporter and photographer found many people who said they were thrilled finally to be getting the vaccine.
Yet, several people arriving for vaccinations at the site operated by Yale New Haven Health said they came from Hamden. Others came from Cheshire, Branford and as far away as Clinton, among other places.
As of Friday, the site was still not fully utilized — with just four of its vaccination stations in use and little in the way of lines.
“We are concerned with the low turnout ... from the Black and brown communities . ... We are the ones who are ending up at the hospitals, and dying.”
Dori Dumas, president, NAACP New Haven chapter
Getting the word out
But in New Haven, in addition to the Health Department’s outreach efforts, alders and volunteers have been calling people directly to urge them to get vaccinated and help guide them through the process, said Director of Health Maritza Bond.
Bond said that New Haven has a
number of other clinics besides the fieldhouse, including at all of its senior housing facilities, Fair Haven Community Health Care, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and places such as Casa Otoñal in the Hill neighborhood, that directly serve residents of communities of color.
It even has begun doing “pop-up” vaccination clinics, just as it previously did pop-up testing centers, Bond said.
“This is a historical moment,” Bond said. “This is what public health officials sign up for . ... I’m very grateful that we have” so many people willing to help out, she said.
Bond admitted, however, that supply has been an issue.
“Should people have access to vaccines? Absolutely!” she said. “Is the reality that there’s not enough vaccine to go around? Yes!”
Bond said she expects the rate of vaccination, as well as the diversity of people getting vaccinated, to climb in the near future as vaccinations become available at area Walgreens, CVS and Walmart stores.
“The fact that the pharmacies are rolling out next week, to me, is really exciting — because that means access,” she said.
As of Monday, New Haven had given a first vaccination to 37.73 percent of its residents aged 75 and older, which Bond said made it “one of the leading urban cities in the state.”
That compares with 24.1 percent in Bridgeport, 29.4 percent in Hartford, 47.5 percent in Stamford, 24.9 percent in Waterbury, 40.2 percent in Danbury, 42.8 percent in Norwalk, 45.8 percent in Middletown, 34.4 percent in Torrington and 32.8 percent in New London, according to a new state vaccination distribution map.
In Greater New Haven, that compares with 67.8 percent in Guilford, 64.6 percent in Woodbridge, 59.8 percent in Bethany, 58.8 percent in Madison, 57.2 percent in Cheshire, 57.1 percent in North Branford, 56.9 percent in Orange, 54.8 percent in Branford, 52.5 percent in Wallingford, 49.1 percent in North Haven, 45.8 percent in Hamden, 43.4 percent in Milford, 35.2 percent in West Haven and 29.5 percent in East Haven.
While it has been difficult for Bond to break it down by demographics, “We do have a sense based on what we’re seeing nationwide and across the state that we are not vaccinating communities of color at the same rate we are vaccinating other communities,” she said.
New Haven’s population includes 34.32 percent Black residents and 28.6 percent Hispanic residents.
Other avenues to use
A number of leaders, from the president of the Greater New Haven NAACP to city church pastors, think other strategies might need to be brought to bear to better reach people of color.
When Cheryl Pegues, 77, went to get her first shot of the vaccine at the fieldhouse recently, she said she didn’t see many people who looked like her — and was told by one of the technicians “that they hadn’t had very many African Americans.”
Pegues thinks part of the problem is that, when looking at people 75 and up, some people of color may not be fully computer literate or have smart phones — and she and many people who look out for seniors of color in New Haven think the city and state need to broaden the way they reach people.
“On the day that (vaccination clinics) opened it up, (Phase) 1b, I got on the phone with all the prompts and the only one that was open that was near me was Devine Street in North Haven,” Pegues said. “Then I had to go into MyChart ... and I’m very savvy ... and I waited, and waited and waited, and it never quite came to fruition.”
Then her daughter called her and told her that a friend’s parents had gotten an appointment at the fieldhouse — and when Pegues called, “it turned out that they had appointments at the fieldhouse in New Haven,” she said.
To get the appointment, “I had to wait . ... I went back three times,” Pegues said. “But I think for people who weren’t computer literate, it would be a lot harder.
“I just think there should be some other avenues to use — and I do think there should be a phone number,” she said. “I think that would help. Most elderly who have some need for some sort of assistance do have people who will assist them.”
They also could use “maybe just a little more information about the vaccine itself,” she said. “There’s such a disparity in the health care for minorities ... and if you have lived through segregation like I have and lived to the age where I am now ... there is certainly disparity in health care.
“... I think in a nutshell, there could be a bit more education ... toward everybody but certainly toward people of color,” she said.
Pegues, a former administrator for Gateway Community College who lives in Hamden these days but lived and worked for many years in New Haven and still attends Immanuel Missionary Baptist Church, said one important avenue to reach senior citizens of color in New Haven would be to go through their churches.
New Haven NAACP President Dori Dumas, the Rev. Kelcy G.L. Steele, pastor of Varick Memorial AME Zion Church on Dixwell Avenue, and the Rev. Boise Kimber, pastor of First Calvary Baptist Church and president of the New Haven Clergy Association, all agree on that.
“Even at Hillhouse High School, right in the middle of New Haven, so few Black people are showing up,” said Dumas. “We are concerned with the low turnout and the low numbers of people from the Black and brown communities . ... We are the ones who are ending up at the hospitals, and dying.”
When you look at people 75 and over, “they often don’t have a smartphone or know how to use a smartphone,” Dumas said.
Members of the AfricanAmerican community, particularly those from older generations, also still bear residual scars from the “Tuskeegee study” begun in 1932 of syphilis in AfricanAmerican men, in which participants were told they were receiving free medical care but in many cases did not receive proper treatment, she said.
Mistrust of a government-supplied vaccine runs deep.
“It is extremely important for us” to reach out to people, Dumas said. “We need to take it where people are ... senior centers. They should be utilizing churches — people attend church, even if it’s a virtual . ... They should be utilizing the library.”
“We want access, we want equity and we want people in our communities to be protected,” Dumas said. “We have to advocate for everyone who maybe isn’t able to speak for themselves . ... I think they also should do a massive mailing. Seniors are people who still get mail, look at mail.”
Kimber said he has been working with the state and Equity Health Solutions in Hartford to get the word out and make sure people know key information about the vaccine.
“We’re trying to educate people” about “the safety of it,” Kimber said. But “you’re asking a 75-year-old person, 80-year-old person, to have a smartphone and go online.” He thinks reaching them through their houses of worship would be valuable.
“You cannot get around the church,” Kimber said. “That is the central location where people of my race go” when “they need help ... They trust their church. They trust their leader. If their leader has taken it, we take some fear away from them.”
Kimber also suggested a mobile vaccination unit “to go to places where people are.”
According to Steele, “They need to take the same approach that they did with testing by bringing it to the communities . ... We need to go into the communities like Dixwell and the Hill and Fair Haven in order to meet people where they are — and not expect them to come to where (the clinics are).”
Team of volunteers
Preliminary “provisional data” Bond recently received shows that about 35 percent of the people vaccinated in the city have been African American/Black, 14 percent have been Hispanic/Latino, 49 percent have been white and 2 percent have been “other,” she said.
Of those who have refused the vaccinations, 44 percent have been African American/Black, 11 percent have been Hispanic/Latino, 35 percent have been white and 6 percent have been “other,” Bond said.
“For me, we’ve been seeing lots of diversity in our clinics,” Bond said.
One early barrier was that the first phase of vaccinations was “so heavily focused on health care professionals,” Bond said. She also noted that the people being vaccinated at the Floyd Little Fieldhouse are not all from New Haven and are coming from neighboring communities.
New Havener Diane Petaway, 79, a friend of Pegues who lives on Middletown Avenue, has a computer and managed to negotiate the online system and has a appointment to get vaccinated at the Health Department on Meadow Street on Thursday.
After getting through for herself, she spent an hourand-a-half on the phone to try to sign up a friend “and I still didn’t get anybody.
“They have to have an email — and that’s a problem,” Petaway said. “Because not everyone has an email. They don’t do that. It’s not easy for seniors,” she said. “I have a computer, but everybody does not.”
“.. They need some phone banks,” she said. “You can’t keep people on the phone all day long. I think the phone banks is the only way that you’re going to get everybody to sign up.”
Petaway never doubted that she would get the vaccination, though.
“This particular virus is different from anything that we’ve ever seen,” she said. “That’s why I’m taking the vaccination. I don’t take a flu shot. But this COVID-19 is not like the flu . ... This is a new strain. They’ve never seen it . ... I just hope and pray that people will pay attention and know that they need to take the vaccine.”
City spokesman Gage Frank said the city is working hard to make sure that they do.
“We’ve got a team of volunteers, interns, members of the community who have been phone banking to people on our seniors list,” Frank said. “If somebody says they haven’t gotten a call, that they don’t know how to do it, we take their information” and follow up with them.
As of Thursday morning, they had made a total of 607 calls and connected with people on 134 of them, with 39 people from the calls already vaccinated, 58 scheduled and 29 who had yet to schedule or be vaccinated, he said.
Sylvia Cooper, church administrator at Varick, said she has been working to help many people who are having trouble getting appointments to get vaccinated.
“The experience that we’re having with some of the elderly people in the Black community registering for the vaccine for the first time ... it’s kind of confusing,” she said. There also have been problems with people having the right identification, she said.
Many people are frustrated because “they waste time on the phone,” Cooper said. “You have to press so many buttons.”
At the Floyd Little Athletic Center on Friday, the people getting vaccinated all were grateful to finally have the opportunity, although some offered criticisms of their own of the process.
“It’s about time!” said Harry Cast of Branford, who got the vaccine with his wife, Cathy. They were accompanied by their daughter, Ellen Kemble of Branford. “Once we found out that we could get it on MyChart, we were OK,” he said.
Cast said he never even thought about getting the vaccine in Branford — and, in fact, didn’t even know that he could.
“I feel like I can continue my life now and get out and about, instead of being stuck in the house,” said Jessica Fisher of Cheshire, 76.
But “I have an issue with the VAMS (Vaccine Administration Management System) system” used by the state to sign up for vaccines, Fisher said. “It doesn’t work.” Fisher said she ended up coming to New Haven because someone told her she could sign up for a vaccine directly via Yale New Haven Health, and that directed her to the fieldhouse.
But “my husband’s been waiting for a month to get his second email” to get through via VAMS, she said.
She thinks vaccines should be offered through senior centers, she said.
“I feel great — it’s a most-needed thing,” said Patrick Carey of Hamden, 76, who came to New Haven to be vaccinated because “this is where they set me up.”
“I think it gives people peace of mind,” said Carey, who managed to sign up on his smartphone. “It’s a good thing! Everybody should get it — you’re protecting yourself! You’re protecting others.”
Ann Palmieri of Hamden was thrilled to finally get her first injection.
“I’m here — finally,” said Palmieri, 78, who came to get vaccinated with her husband, Marc, 79. “Personally, there wasn’t enough organization to this,” she said.
Marc Palmieri was impressed, however, once they got there. “This has been very smooth,” he said as he relaxed in a recovery area after getting his first injection.
Ann Palmieri, a retired teacher, said some of her relatives and friends are reticent to get the vaccine. If she could talk to them all now, she would tell them “to get the shot,” she said. “The more of us that do get it,” the more people will benefit, she said.