DALLAS – Guadalupe Torres from Mi Familia Vota stayed with Maria Cruz Meza on her doorstep for an hour, determined to have Covid-19 vaccinations for her and her husband and son.
Just five days earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had sounded the alarm that the country was entering a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” as the delta variant of the coronavirus drives up Covid-19 cases and hospital stays.
Cruz Meza, 54, said she was nervous about her body’s response to a Covid-19 vaccination because of her food and drug sensitivity and acid reflux. But after hearing about the latest coronavirus cases, she pushed those fears aside and welcomed Torres’ offer to schedule her for appointments.
“I’d rather have minor side effects than end up in the hospital,” she told NBC News.
After a long phone call with a local hospital, Torres booked the three appointments.
For years, MFV, a national organization, has sent workers and volunteers to Latino neighborhoods to register voters and get them to vote.
Now the group is using their canvassing methods to vaccinate more Latinos.
According to the CDC, the delta variant now accounts for 83 percent of the new Covid 19 cases. There are fears of what that means for Latinos who have been disproportionately affected by the virus.
Covid-19 has been on the rise in Texas all month, and hospital admissions are back to March levels but not yet as high as they were earlier in the year.
In the meantime, vaccination rates have slowed. A Dallas County’s mass vaccination station in Fair Park closed on July 17 and the county is moving to smaller pop-up clinics there, the Dallas Morning News reported.
After President Joe Biden failed to partially vaccinate 70 percent of the American population by July 4th, President Joe Biden announced on July 6th that his administration was moving from mass vaccination to a more community-based approach.
MFV’s work has just started in Texas, and Torres is the only door-to-door employee in the state. The group deployed 15 people in Nevada and 20 in California in January. MFV hopes to expand as more money is available to fund the work.
Liz Magallanes of Mi Familia Vota, left, responds to questions from Sara Saldaña, 29, second from left, about Covid-19 vaccine safety in Dallas.Suzanne Gamboa / NBC News
In Dallas, MFV is working to set up pop-up vaccination clinics and partnering with a ridesharing company to move people who cannot make appointments.
Torres has also visited small Latino businesses in Dallas and asked them to allow her to sign up their employees. Some agreed, others wanted the staff to make appointments.
“As we work in communities, we are frustrated that there is currently limited funding for critical vaccination work in our community,” said Hector Sanchez Barba, managing director and CEO of MFV.
“Shortening their lifespan”
Evidence of the serious strain on the community from the virus is mounting.
Of the more than 3,000 Hispanics surveyed by the Pew Research Center in March, more than half said a family member or close friend had died or been hospitalized due to Covid-19. Almost half said they had lost wages or jobs because of the pandemic.
Hispanics, who generally have a longer life expectancy than most other populations, saw a significant decrease in life expectancy in 2020 – and 90 percent of that decrease was caused by Covid-19, the CDC said this week.
“They shorten their lifespan when they get Covid,” said Dr. Armando Meza, director of infectious diseases at Texas Tech University’s El Paso Health Sciences Center.
As fewer people become infected with the vaccine, the delta variant disappears, “but if we don’t do that, the delta variant will be followed by another variant that is associated with a higher risk, and that is what you don’t want “To have,“ said Meza.
Confusion, delays suggest vaccination challenges
On Tuesday afternoon, the challenge of making door-to-door appointments was evident when Torres visited a handful of homes on a street in central East Dallas.
Torres made seven appointments over about 2 1/2 hours.
She originally planned to book Cruz Meza for an appointment at a CVS drugstore, but had to move to a vaccination clinic run by Baylor Scott and White Health so that Cruz Meza’s son could also be vaccinated.
To make the appointment by phone, Torres had to convey information between Cruz Meza and the hospital staff in English and Spanish. There was confusion and delays when the hospital was unable to match the information Cruz Meza had provided with her husband’s files.
There was also a cultural division. The hospital tried to verify the identity of Cruz Meza’s husband, Manuel Reyes Meza, by asking her his middle name. Cruz Meza said her husband didn’t have a middle name, but after some back and forth, Torres found that the hospital was looking for “Reyes,” the last name of Manuel’s mother, which, as is common with many Latinos, is part of his last name – none middle name.
Though time consuming, the scenario showed how some people in need of vaccinations can give up amid confusing appointment registration.
Even if Torres couldn’t get an appointment, she was able to talk to unvaccinated people.
Paul Saldaña, 67, and his wife Ana Saldaña, 62, told Torres they had been vaccinated; Ana Saldaña said she did it for her grandchildren, and Paul Saldaña mentioned his weakened immune system from cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. They called a number they saw on TV to set up their appointments, they said.
But they said they had other family members and friends who needed vaccinations.
“Young people don’t want to move [young people don’t want to pull their weight]“Saldaña said when it comes to vaccinations.
They called their daughter Sara Saldaña to the doorstep, hoping that Torres and Liz Magallanes, coordinator of MFV Dallas, could persuade them to get vaccinated.
“I’m too scared,” said Sara Saldaña, 29. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t want to be a guinea pig. I’m one of the conspiracy theorists.”
She listened as Magallanes stated that research was being carried out on other strains of the coronavirus long before the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite not agreeing to make an appointment, she took a phone number and said she would think about it.
Torres said she was driven to do the labor-intensive job based on her family’s experience with Covid-19.
Despite taking precautions of wearing masks and picking up food on the side of the road, Torres, her parents, brother, niece and nephew were infected with Covid-19 last year.
Although no one was hospitalized, her mother became very ill and Torres had to take time off from her senior year of college to take care of her family.
“We did everything in our power not to get sick, but because everyone in my family was still working we got sick,” said Torres.
When the vaccines became available, Torres said her parents did not hesitate and her grandmother was the first in the family to receive the vaccinations.
“Although we were scared of getting it because it was just being rolled out, we signed up the moment we were able to,” she said.
Their willingness triggered a snowball effect. Her uncle saw that her family members were vaccinated and decided, “We can do that too,” said Torres.
Meza in El Paso said even members of his family, whom he said were professionals with good training, were reluctant to get vaccinated. Urging Latinos to protect their families could be the best approach to increasing vaccinations, he said.
“It’s honestly unacceptable that so many people died when there was a chance to stop it,” Meza said. “Hopefully the community will take this news very seriously.”
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