SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) -- In East San Jose, the battle to get more people in the community vaccinated continues, and at least one city official is calling upon local leadership to reopen a major vaccination site.
San Jose Planning Commission Chair, Rolando Bonilla, a COVID-19 survivor, is urging Santa Clara County to reopen the Mexican Heritage Plaza as the number of positive COVID-19 cases in East San Jose continue to spike.
“I’m not saying that this is an easy task by any means, but we do have the opportunity to have learned from March 2020 and open up the site now before we have numbers,” said Bonilla.
“What I don’t want in about two, three weeks, the way things are going is that now they’re going to rush to open it up because what that means is that hospitalization rates are up, people are starting to die at a much higher frequency,” Bonilla added.
“That is literally what I am trying to avoid.”
Several East San Jose zip codes are recording some of the highest infections rates in the county.
The mass vaccination site at the Plaza, run by Gardner Health Services in partnership with the county, opened in January and targeted East San Jose’s disproportionately affected groups.
But the site has now been shut down as the daily number of people getting vaccinated fell to just 10 visitors per day.
The county tells KRON4 News via email in part, “the Mexican Heritage Plaza vaccination site was an important part of the County’s efforts to reach the Latinx community for many months.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the county says it focused its vaccine outreach efforts toward the county’s deeply impacted Latino community, particularly in East San Jose and Gilroy.
According to county data, the county has vaccinated 75% of people 50 and older within the Latino community, compared to 70% among the county’s white population.
But Bonilla says there are still many people within the community that remain unvaccinated, most expressing fear of the after-effects of the vaccine, making it difficult for some to attend work.
“Now they want us to believe that pop-ups and door-to-door (vaccine outreach efforts) are all we need,” said Bonilla.
“No, we need all of the above.”
In total, the Plaza vaccinated over 25,000 community members.
And although the Plaza is now closed as a vaccination site, there are door-to-door outreach efforts from the Si Se Puede Collective and community health workers to help answer questions regarding the vaccine and to make an appointment at county vaccination sites.
Additionally, there are several other vaccination sites available in the surrounding community, which include the mass vaccination site at the county fairgrounds, on Story and King roads, the county’s East Valley and Tulley clinics.
There are also multiple pop-ups and pharmacy locations throughout East San Jose.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3f91zsQ
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