SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) – Samia Dridi, who was born, grew up and works as a nurse in Saint-Denis, fears for her impoverished city, remembering how the coronavirus opened a particularly deadly path through the diverse area north of Paris, a burial place for French kings buried in a majestic basilica.
Dridi and his sister accompanied their fragile 92-year-old Algerian mother to a vaccination center for the first of two vaccines against COVID-19 days after it opened last week for people over 75.
Although bureaucracy, consent requirements and supply issues have slowed the implementation of vaccination in France across the country, the Seine-Saint-Denis region faces special challenges to prevent the virus and vaccinate people when their turn comes.
It is the poorest region in mainland France and had the biggest increase in mortality in the country last spring, largely due to COVID-19. Up to 75% of the population are immigrants or have immigrant roots, and their residents speak about 130 different languages. Health care is below average, with two to three times fewer hospital beds than other regions and a higher rate of chronic diseases. Many are essential workers in supermarkets, public sanitation and health.
The coronavirus was initially widely seen as the great equalizer, infecting the rich and the poor. But since then, studies have shown that some people are more vulnerable than others, especially the elderly, those with other long-term illnesses and the poor, often living on the margins of mainstream society, like immigrants who don’t speak French. .
Dridi, 56, a nurse for more than three decades, is relieved that there is currently no “significant evolution” of the virus in her city. But she does not forget what happened when the pandemic started.
“We had entire families with COVID,” she said. Many have several generations living together in small apartments, something that experts say is a common problem in the region.
Despite these bleak memories, local authorities face special challenges in spreading the vaccines to a population where many do not speak French, do not have access to regular medical care and, as in much of France, do not trust the safety of the vaccine.
Next month, a bus will tour the region, with an emphasis on open markets, to provide information on vaccination. In addition, about 40 “vaccination ambassadors” who speak several languages will be trained to speak, starting in March, about vaccinations and also about “false news” about them.
An example of this is Youssef Zaoui, 32, an Algerian who lives in Saint-Denis.
“I heard that vaccination is very dangerous, more than the virus,” said Zaoui, sitting in the shadow of the basilica. Proof that you don’t have to worry about the virus: the butcher on the road and the man who sells cigarettes nearby. They were there in early March “and are still here. … I’m still here, ”he said.
Is there any chance that the vaccine will turn the tide in the inequality reflected in mortality statistics in the region?
“Before the vaccine becomes a great equalizer, everyone must be vaccinated,” said Patrick Simon, who co-authored a study last June on the vulnerability of minorities in Seine-Saint-Denis to COVID-19. But he said the challenges for marginalized communities in accessing health care continues, “then these inequalities will also be reproduced for the vaccine”.
While the French healthcare system is designed to provide affordable medical treatment for all, bureaucratic demands and co-payments often drive away new immigrants or the poorest. Government health guidelines do not always reach people outside the system.
As a nurse at a municipal health center, Dridi sees poverty head-on that translates into vulnerability to the coronavirus.
“I’m giving you an injection, an injection, putting on a bandage … and some say, ‘I live in a car, I’m on the street,'” she said.
That unhappiness was not apparent at the vaccination center where Dridi’s mother was shot – among the 17 who opened in the region last week and where the most fortunate in Saint-Denis, who live in private homes, were seen on a recent visit. Some arrived at the center on canes or held by an arm. A couple appeared on a scooter. Everyone was anxious to be vaccinated.
They were among the lucky ones. Appointments were reduced after the distribution of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was reduced, as in other parts of France and Europe.
“I was lucky to be vaccinated today,” said a woman, who then started to cry. She was infected with COVID-19 during treatment at a private clinic in April and lost her mother in October to the virus after she contracted it at a hospital where she was treated after a fall.
The woman, who refused to give her name, told Dridi and her sister to look after her mother because “she is your treasure”.
For Dridi, seeing people dying from COVID-19 can change the game.
“Some people say no (to vaccination) because they have no contact with death,” said Dridi. But death, “that’s what makes you react”.