With the increase in infection rates caused by the Delta variant, in a race against time and overcoming all kinds of challenges such as harassment, racism and physical altercations, community organizations accelerate the step towards the vaccination campaign against covid – 19 to convince the unvaccinated to get immunized.
Not only They go from door to door but instead go to markets, parks and any place where people congregate.
During the videoconference “Vaccinating the unvaccinated: success stories and challenges to reach Latino communities Low Vaccination, ”offered by Ethnic Media Services, three community organizations focused on unvaccinated Latinos from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, rural communities in San Joaquin and cities like Stockton spoke about their work to build confidence in vaccination against covid- 19.
Kim McCoy Wade, director of the California Department of Aging said there is a gap in reaching Latino seniors, and they really want to close it because particularly in this group they have had a disproportionate number of deaths from covid.
He said that what they have learned is to always ask older adults what is important to them. The health of your family? the money? How can we meet with them? “Because as the governor says, what we want is to save lives.”
Dangerous challenges
Jorge Pingarrón from the Todos Unidos door-to-door campaign in Stockton, said they have had to deal with many problems from extreme heat, pollution from fires and even racism , harassment and physical altercations.
“It has been a difficult campaign, but nevertheless, we are proud of what we have done and we are going to stand firm and keep moving forward.”
He explained that when they knock on the door of a house, what works best is to start a personal conversation that aims to convince them of vaccination.
However, they have had physical altercations. “In a rural area of Modesto where there are many United States flags on the houses, when the promoters were walking, they found a group of people who were following them and they blocked their way with their cars. They told them that they needed to leave and that they were not welcome. ”
Pingarrón said that the promoters answered that they were not doing anything wrong but that they were trying to help for covid – 20 will end and we will all return to normal.
“Still they didn’t want to listen. When we gave them the information, they threw it in our faces and we proceeded to call the sheriff. He asked us if we wanted to press charges. We told him we would go to civil court. The sheriff only gave us a case number and filled out a report with just his name, and he left everything else blank. ”
Pingarrón pointed out that the main reason people don’t know he wants to vaccinate, he shows up when they make vaccination a political issue. But on the other hand, he said that there are people who do not believe in the vaccine because they do not consider that there is enough research.
The MacArthur Park Experience
Irma Muñoz of the organization Women of the Earth (MDLT), specified that MacArthur Park is formed almost in 80% by Latino immigrants, most of Central America.
The experience has been successful because they said they know the community very intimately and many of the people they hired for the vaccination campaign are from the community. “They know the neighbors, the land and they can guide you because they are not learning for the first time.”
Most of the promoters are women who live in the MacArthur Park area.
One of the challenges they have faced is the community’s fear of providing their personal information due to their immigration status. “Many are undocumented and no one wants to give their identification because they think immigration is going to knock on their door and take them away.”
Another obstacle was that MacArthur Park is a working-class neighborhood and people are not available to get vaccinated from Monday to Saturday.
“Unfortunately on Sundays there were no vaccination places until our supervisor Hilda Solís intervened. ”
The other big problem is the strong religious community present in the park. “The followers of these parishes say that their leaders have told them that the vaccine injects poison into them.”
Muñoz said that only the 20% of their campaign has been door to door, because they have discovered that during COVID many people do not open. “If they don’t wait for you, they won’t open it.”
As a result, most of the campaign has been done wherever they can find people. “We go to the stores, truck stops, the Metro and where there are street vendors.”
This is how they have managed to get most of the street vendors vaccinated.
There is also a presence of soccer football players, youth and adults. “That has given us the opportunity to talk with parents to get vaccinated.”
But in reality, Muñoz said, the campaign has been a word of mouth job. “We encourage people to talk with their neighbors, relatives and members of the churches so that they get vaccinated.”
He said that the reluctance to get vaccinated also has to do with the great fear of unknown. “We try to remove it with facts. That takes time. And they leave us their phone numbers and after several calls they change their mind and want us to come back to answer more questions. ”
When it comes to older adults, he said that through them it is possible to reach the whole family. “In that area, many grandparents live with their children, and in fact in many houses, there are two or three families living together.”
In the case of children under 18 years that perhaps are unaccompanied migrants or refugees and do not have a parent or guardian, they are trapped because they cannot be vaccinated even when they want to be vaccinated.
The threat of gangs
Muñoz said that in MacArthur Park there are three very active gangs and there is a very large homeless population, whom they have tried to vaccinate.
About the gangs, said that as long as they do not meddle in their affairs and keep their distance, they have no problem, although they always have to be extremely safe.
“A member of the M gang – 13 approached a young Latino from 18 years who worked with us and asked him to leave. And he left, because no one is in the campaign to be a hero. That has been the only encounter we have had with the gangs. ”
On another occasion, a person held a gun at one of their promoters when they knocked on the door. “They left immediately and there was no damage, thank goodness. It is not worth exposing your life to convince someone to get vaccinated. ”
Heat and pollution
Esperanza Velma, director of the Coalition Environmental for Water (EJCW), an organization made up of minority women that has campaigned in disadvantaged communities in Stockton, Northern California, said that because the Hispanic population is very large, its advocates are bilingual.
In the 9 weeks they have been campaigning to get people from 4 zip codes to get vaccinated, in addition to knocking on doors, they have gone to community centers, Mexican and Asian markets and tianguis.
Although temperatures can reach 100 degrees, they have adapted and instead of going out in the mornings, they do campaign in the afternoons.
“We also make phone calls when we have had contamination by the i Fire and the air is dangerous, but we rely more on personal contact when going door to door and to all massive places. ”
He affirmed that this is the reason why vaccination rates have increased in their zip codes.
In this, he said, it has greatly influenced that in his team of promoters of the anti-covid vaccine, there are from young people to older adults with whom residents can identify.