Jean Andrade, an 88-year-old woman who lives alone, has been waiting for her COVID-19 vaccine since she became eligible under state guidelines almost a month ago. She assumed that her social worker would contact her about getting one, especially after she spent nearly two days trapped in an electric recliner during a recent power outage.
Only after watching a newscast on TV about the competition for limited supply of photos in Portland, Oregon, did she realize that no one was scheduling her dose. A grocery delivery service for elderly people who lived at home ended up providing a leaflet with information about the vaccine, and Andrade asked an assistant who came four hours a week to try to get her an appointment.
“I thought it would be a priority at the age of 88 and someone to let me know,” said Andrade, who has lived in the same house for 40 years and has no family members who can help her. “You ask anyone who is 88, 89 years old and has no one to help you, ask what to do. Well, I still have my brain, thank goodness. But I am very angry.”
Older adults have top priority at COVID-19 immunization units around the world now, and hundreds of thousands of them are spending hours online, soliciting their children’s help and traveling hours to distant pharmacies in a desperate attempt to ensure a COVID-19 vaccine. But countless numbers like Andrade are lagging behind, unseen, because they are too overwhelmed, too fragile or too poor to defend themselves.
ARCHIVE – In this archive photo of February 5, 2021, Dr. Ingrid Felix-Peralta, on the right, and her husband Dr. Victor Peralta, second on the right, say goodbye to Roque Peralta, on the left, and Crila Rodriguez Peralta, to the center, (unrelated) after Roque and Crila received their second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in New York. (AP Photo / Seth Wenig)
The urgency to reach this vulnerable population before the nation’s focus turns elsewhere is growing as more Americans of other ages and priority groups become eligible for vaccines. With time passing and many states extending vaccines to people under 55, nonprofits, churches and advocacy groups are struggling to find isolated elders and inoculate them before they have to compete with an even larger group – and are potentially overlooked as vaccination campaigns move on.
An extreme imbalance between vaccine supply and demand in almost every part of the United States makes guaranteeing a chance a bet. In Oregon, Andrade is competing with some 750,000 residents aged 65 and over, and demand is so high that appointments for weekly dose distribution in Portland are completed in less than an hour. On Monday, the flooded vaccine information call line closed at around 9 am and online booking sites broke.
In the midst of such a frenzy, the launch of the vaccine here and elsewhere has strongly favored healthier elderly people with resources “who are able to jump in their cars at any time and drive for two hours” while the most vulnerable elderly are overlooked, said James Stowe, the director of services for the elderly and adults for an association of city and district governments in the Kansas City area.
“Why weren’t they the impetus for our efforts, the essence of what we wanted to do? Why didn’t you include this group from the start?” he said of the most vulnerable elderly.
Some of the elderly who have not yet received the vaccines are so disconnected that they do not even know they are eligible. Others realize that they qualify, but without Internet service and, often, email accounts, they don’t know how to make an appointment and can’t get to one anyway – so they didn’t try.
CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Still others have debilitating health problems that make leaving home an insurmountable task, or are so afraid of exposing themselves to COVID-19 that they would rather not be vaccinated than risk venturing out in public to have an injection.
Pat Brown waits outside the Don Bosco Senior Center in Kansas City, Missouri, Wednesday, March 3, 2021. (AP Photo / Orlin Wagner)
In Kansas City, Missouri, 75-year-old Pat Brown knows she needs the vaccine because her asthma and diabetes put her at greater risk for serious complications from COVID-19. But Brown did not attempt to schedule an appointment and did not even know if they were being offered in his area yet; she says she is very overwhelmed.
“I don’t have a car and it’s difficult for me to get around. I just don’t like going to the clinics and having to wait because you have to wait a lot,” said Brown, adding that constant pain from spinal arthritis is hospitalized. “I couldn’t do that. My back hurts … and I don’t have the money to get a taxi.”
The pandemic has also closed centers for the elderly, libraries and churches – all places where older Americans can remain visible in their communities and obtain information about the vaccine. And some public health departments at first relied on mass e-mails and text messages to alert residents that they were eligible, thereby losing a large portion of the elderly population.
“Do you think everyone has access to the internet? Do you really think everyone has e-mail?” Denise LaBuda, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Aging Council, said. “We just don’t know where everyone is. They have to raise their hands – and how do they raise their hands?”
To contain disparities in access, the Biden administration said on Wednesday that it will partner with health insurers to help vulnerable seniors get vaccinated against COVID-19. The goal is to vaccinate 2 million elderly people at greatest risk soon, said White House special adviser on coronavirus Andy Slavitt.
Slavitt says insurers will use their networks to contact Medicare beneficiaries with information about the COVID-19 vaccines, answer questions, find and schedule appointments for the first and second doses, and coordinate transportation. The focus will be on reaching people in clinically underserved areas.
Nonprofits, churches and advocates for the elderly have spent weeks trying to figure out how to reach disadvantaged Americans over 65 through a patchwork and grassroots efforts that vary widely by location.
ARCHIVE – In this March 3, 2021 archive photo, Nesta Loida Mendez, 86, receives the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from US Army doctor Luis Perez, at a FEMA vaccination station at Miami Dade College in North Miami, Florida (AP Photo / Marta Lavandier, Archive)
CLICK HERE FOR FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
Some are partnering with charities like Meals on Wheels to distribute information about vaccines or food delivery programs like the one that alerted Andrade. Others are exploring library card lists, senior citizen center member lists and voter registration databases to find disconnected senior citizens.
Reaching through organizations and religious groups that marginalize older Americans already trust is critical, said Margaret Scharle, who developed a vaccine extension toolkit for her Roman Catholic parish in Oregon. The “low-tech” approach, which other charities have begun to use, depends on slamming the door, paper brochures and scheduled phone calls to communicate with residents over the age of 65.
“Once you’ve been blocked so many times in an attempt to set up a meeting, you can give up. Therefore, we are working as hard as we can to penetrate the most marginalized communities, to activate the networks that already exist, ”said Scharle, who after the initial contact offers assistance in scheduling appointments and transportation.
In Georgetown, South Carolina, a rural community where many of the 10,000 residents are descendants of slaves, the local NAACP chapter is using its campaign rolls to get votes in November to get older citizens for the vaccine. Chapter president Marvin Neal said they are trying to reach 2,700 people so that they know they are eligible for an injection and to offer help with scheduling appointments.
Many of these individuals have no internet service or transportation, or suffer from medical conditions such as dementia, he said.
“Some don’t even know that the vaccine is even in their community, that’s the challenge,” said Neal. “It is as if they are just throwing their hands in the air and waiting for someone to intervene. Because everyone I talked to wants the vaccine. I haven’t taken one yet that didn’t say, ‘Sign me up. ‘”
Elder Barbara Bender serves Store to Door employee Nancy Murphy in Portland, Oregon, while delivering a grocery order to the nonprofit on February 25, 2021. (AP Photo / Gillian Flaccus)
Disclosure agents are also identifying gaps in the system that prevent the most vulnerable elderly people from accessing vaccines. For example, a dial-up service in a rural part of Oregon does not take passengers beyond the limits of their city, which means that they cannot reach the mass vaccination site in their county. In the same region, only the largest city has a public bus system.
These obstacles underscore what community officials say is a huge demand for mobile vaccine clinics. Some local governments and non-profit organizations are partnering with paramedics and groups of volunteers who specialize in disaster response to vaccinate the hardest-to-reach elderly.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
In South Carolina, pharmacist Raymond Paschal purchased a $ 3,000 van and refrigerator to open a mobile clinic for underserved areas, but his independent pharmacy in Georgetown is unable to obtain any vaccines.
“There are a lot of people falling through the cracks,” said Paschal. “Those older people who have not yet received the vaccine will have this whole younger generation that they will have to compete with. So we have to reach these older people first.”