California is one of the worst states at getting vaccines for vulnerable populations

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Abraham has been calling government officials in recent months to demand vaccine doses for black and brown people in hard-hit South Los Angeles, develop vaccination sites that welcome walk-in patients, host massive vaccination events with entertainers, and deploy mobile vaccination fleets in neighborhoods where residents have no transport.

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

“We’ve broken every barrier between people and their vaccines,” Abraham told CNN. “No appointment, that’s okay. No internet or email, phone or transportation, can’t walk, talk or see, can’t speak English, no papers, homeless – none of those were barriers.”

California remains one of the states with the greatest disparities in vaccinating the Latino population, despite efforts like Abraham’s and a statewide mandate that allocates 40% of vaccine doses to disadvantaged communities. According to state data, 20% of vaccine doses have been given to Latinos, who make up 39% of the population and 56% of cases. And 3% of the vaccines have been given to black people in California, who make up 6% of the population and 4% of the cases. White people, meanwhile, have received 29% of the vaccines and make up 20% of the cases and 37% of the population.
Health advocates say vaccine misinformation and lack of access are the main reasons for California’s racial inequality. Now they are urging the state and its partners to boost vaccination efforts in communities of color to prevent inequality from widening when all California adults are eligible for admission on April 15. Some fear that residents with reliable internet, transportation, and the ability to take them off work will continue to outpace the poor black and Latino communities worst affected by Covid-19.
California officials were fired earlier this year when a vaccine program intended for seniors living in black and Latino communities was abused by outsiders who were given the special group codes needed to schedule appointments.
Teachers at a private Los Angeles school were given Covid-19 vaccines - even though they were ineligible under county guidelines
Gavin Newsom replied that the group codes were being abused and that the program would switch to individual codes. About a week later, the Newsom government announced it was setting aside 40% of vaccine doses for hard-hit communities.

“Vaccinating our most affected communities, in our state, is the right choice and the fastest way to end this pandemic,” Newsom said last month.

A ‘flawed’ rollout of vaccines

Dr. Manuel Pastor, director of the University of Southern California’s Equity Research Institute, said that as the state improves its efforts to vaccinate more people of color, the original vaccine programs were “deeply flawed.”

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

“It was a system destined to bring about vaccine inequality,” Pastor said.

Pastor said that if California is to close the racial divide in vaccinations, it needs more employers so that people feel comfortable taking off, build more sites on public transportation routes, and hire trusted messengers who can convince Latino residents that the vaccination programs aren’t are associated with immigration authorities.

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

Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, said California should maintain its focus on equality in the coming weeks as she expects many residents to race to get the vaccination appointments once all adults are eligible.

If there are enough vaccine supplies for all adult residents, the state should work with community partners to get the photos in neighborhoods with lower vaccination coverage, she said.

“Unfortunately, we’re not seeing any progress in closing that gap, so that’s something we really want the state to explore more to better understand why we’re not seeing any change there over time,” Savage-Sangwan said. “Because we would expect a data where we’ve stopped a significant portion of the doses.”

Meeting people where they are

Grassroots organizations across the state have sprung up to help residents book vaccine appointments, many of which are only available online through a lengthy sign-up process.

Groups like Get Out the Shot: Los Angeles hope to remove barriers to getting these appointments by mobilizing their volunteer network to help people across the city find an opportunity. Co-founder Elizabeth Schwandt, who lives in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, said the group met in early February over concerns about the accessibility of appointments.

“All existing systems rely on a good internet connection, a printer and the means to know that these vaccines are available,” said Schwandt. “Even the brightest people around us were struggling, so we knew there was going to be a huge divide.”

The group uses a hotline and email address that people can contact if they need help booking a recording or if they want to understand the state’s eligibility levels. Schwandt said the group has about 400 volunteers who speak at least nine different languages, and together they have helped more than 10,000 people book appointments.

However, now that vaccines are eligible, Schwandt hopes the group will be able to scale up its volunteer efforts as a flow of people seeking vaccines can create more barriers for disadvantaged communities.

“It’s just getting harder for the people we’re trying to help – we don’t expect our work to decline,” she said.

Some black communities in the Los Angeles area continue to see inequalities because there are no pharmacies or health care facilities within a reasonable distance and many families lack Wi-Fi access, said Rhonda M. Smith, executive director of the Black Health Network.

There are also people of color who are reluctant to take the picture. Smith said some myths about the vaccine buy or are concerned about the history of health care racism in the nation. She said communities should expand their efforts to disseminate accurate information about the vaccine that assures people of color that precautions are in place to prevent the Tuskegee experiment from happening again.

“There are a lot more rules and patient protections these days,” said Smith. “But there are people who are just resistant and they never will.”

Meanwhile, Abraham continues to launch more vaccination programs in South Los Angeles, so when people of color are ready to get vaccinated, they have easy access. He recently partnered with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science – a historically black university – to establish a vaccine program in Compton, a city with a large black population.

Abraham said closing the vaccine availability gap requires health care providers to meet people in church parking lots, parks, beaches, and workplaces. The challenge, however, is that Kedren needs more doses, volunteers, vehicles and the capacity to store more vaccines, he said.

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

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