Just northwest of Charleston sits an unassuming church that serves Dunbar residents’ spiritual needs. But on Saturday, Institute Church Of Nazarene opened its recreation center to meet the community’s physical needs, with a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for a mostly black clientele.
“They’re doing a wonderful job with the set-up and everything,” said Brenda Badger, 59. She made the 10 mile drive from Charleston to get her first Moderna dose. After getting her shot, she sat on a fold-out chair in a small gymnasium.In her hands was an egg timer–nurses wanted to make sure she didn’t have any adverse reactions before she went home.
“When that goes off I’m good…So I’m here for 15 minutes. I got about five more minutes,” she said.
Badger says the whole process was quick, in and out. That’s because this clinic was small, there were no massive lines. Just over a 100 doses were available. But in this case, more isn’t exactly better. The goal was to target mostly African Americans in Kanawha County.
June Leffler/ WVPB
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WVPB
Brenda Badger, 59, of Charleston got her first COVID-19 vaccine dose at a church clinic in Dunbar.
The clinic was also run by a mostly African American staff, as part of the faith-centered Partnership of African American Churches, or PAAC. Everyone that day got their shot from one of two nurses.
Teresa Johnson, 63, volunteered her time that Saturday to administer vaccines. She’s been a nurse for 40 years.
“I’ve always wanted to be a nurse since I was a little. I never wanted to do anything else. And I still love it,” Johnson said.
June Leffler/ WVPB
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WVPB
A nurse of 40 years, Teresa Johnson, 63, administered COVID-19 vaccinations at Institute Church Of Nazarene. She works for the Partnership of African American Churches treating those with opioid dependence.
The other nurse is Chamear Davis, 34. She tells everyone to take care of themselves once they leave her table.
“Some people feel some mild symptoms, maybe a fever, backache, things like that. Usually Ibuprofen every six to eight hours takes care of that,” Davis said.
Both nurses work full-time for PAAC. The Charleston-based nonprofit hosts an array of educational and medical services. Typically, Johnson treats people for opioid dependence, while Davis focuses on the more recent epidemic of COVID-19, bringing testing, and now vaccines, to African American communities.
“Since the vaccine has been put out, and since West Virginia is doing such a wonderful job of distributing it, we’ve decided to try to help with that effort and to make sure that the African American communities are getting it as well,” Davis said.
Rev. James Patterson’s agrees. He runs PAAC and works with players throughout the state for support. He made sure he got on the governor’s minority task force for Covid-19. Forming a partnership with the state brought in funding and training resources. Now, PAAC’s hosted its first vaccine clinic, with more to come.
Patterson respects every organization that’s getting vaccines out to people, like the National Guard and local health departments. But he felt it was important to run his own clinic.
“It has nothing to do sometimes with anything other than a cultural competency approach to reaching a community that you’re trying to reach. And we can do that,” Patterson said.
PAAC can do it because its staff looks like its clients. The work now is in the outreach, putting boots on the ground and making plenty of phone calls. PAAC pulls from the state’s central pre-registration system. It also calls on church pastors to make their own lists. That’s how Badger, the woman holding the egg timer, found out about the clinic.
Patterson says black churches carry a legacy of trust that cannot be denied even today.
“The black church is still the focal point, and the center of the community,” he said.
PAAC’s COVID-19 effort is expanding–with teams in Cabell, Kanawha, Raleigh, and Monongalia counties. They have hopes for a mobile clinic so they can reach almost every part of West Virginia. Patterson is asking for more funding from the state to realize that wider reach.
Patterson wasn’t sure how comfortable people would be to get their vaccine. But now that he’s in the thick of organizing these efforts, he says he doesn’t have to do much convincing.
“Now, that might have been true while back, but I don’t believe it’s true anymore. Because I mean, my phone’s been ringing off the hook, last night and this morning, of people wanting to get the vaccine,” he said.
Later this month WVPB’s show Us and Them will feature a full report on racial health disparities in West Virginia. It premieres on February 25th at 8 pm.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.
As more people in West Virginia get their shot, the state is diversifying how it gets COVID-19 vaccines out to people. With a goal to get shots in everyone’s arm, the state and local health departments are figuring out how to reach everyone, no matter their location or demographics.
One way to reach certain folks is through smaller clinics outside of city centers. And these small community clinics are relying on small community outreach.
If you live in Kanawha County, and are lucky enough to get scheduled for your vaccine shot, you’ll probably end up driving downtown to the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. Most weekends, it’s open for a mass vaccination clinic.
But Kanawha-Charleston Health Department Director Dr. Sherri Young said smaller clinics are just as essential. That way, her department can hit every part of the county, not just downtown Charleston.
“I like to go north, south, east and west, and just kind of make our rotation throughout the county,” Young said. “And go the furthest away from the city of Charleston, for the fact that those are the people that may have the hardest time getting there.”
With that idea in mind, the local health department hosted one of these small clinics Wednesday in Rand, about 20 minutes east of Charleston. It was held at the local community center, in a residential neighborhood with playgrounds nearby.
A community clinic like this can be ten times smaller, giving out a few hundred doses versus a few thousand. That day, the health department gave out just shy of 300 doses.
June Leffler/ WVPB
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WVPB
Fielding Moss, 49, and Marilyn Tompa, 67, received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose at a clinic in Rand, WV.
The health department pulled names from the state’s central pre-registration list and called folks based on their age and proximity to the clinic. But the department went a step further, and also reached out to community leaders to get the word out in less formal ways.
“Reaching out to the mayors, to the volunteer fire departments, the people who know that know somebody who needs to get vaccinated,” Young said.
That’s how 63-year-old Rick Hutchinson found out. His sister got a call from the mayor of their small town, Belle. And she called him.
“I was on my way to Teays Valley to do some work. And I turned around and thought this would be a good opportunity. If I didn’t get it today, it might be May or June before my age group gets it,” Hutchinson said.
While the health department is targeting a certain age group at the clinic, they also don’t want to turn anyone away. Hutchinson was just shy of the state recommended age requirement of 65-years-old. But he was at the right place at the right time, and the health department seated him.
The health department chose Rand because it’s aways from the city center, but it also has a target demographic. Almost a third of Rand’s population is African American. That’s important because only 11% of African Americans in West Virginia have been vaccinated, compared to 20% of whites, based on most recent data from the state Department of Health and Human. — That disparity is another reason the department chose Rand for the clinic.
It would appear that the health department still has more work to do in their efforts to close this disparity. Looking around the classroom turned vaccination site, the demographics didn’t reflect what census data for the area shows.
Ronald Allen Jr., who is Black, was there. He’s 48 and lives in Saint Albans. He’s not old by any stretch, but he has congestive heart issues that put him at serious risk if he were to catch Covid-19. Along with seniors and frontline workers, he believes people with underlying conditions, like himself, should have been among the first to get the vaccine.
“Not trying to be, you know,selfish, but this is a very serious situation that the world is dealing with right now,” Allen said.
He knows the stakes. His sister died last year due to similar underlying conditions.
He’s not sure if she had COVID-19, but her last days were certainly impacted by the pandemic.
“She was by herself and nobody could go see her. And it was really tough,” he said.
Allen found out about the clinic from his church leader. Bishop Robert Haley III runs a predominantly Black church on Charleston’s West Side called A More Excellent Way Life Center Church. It’s a place where Allen feels safe and valued and seen, and he trusts Bishop Haley.
Haley says the Black community has a long standing and legitimate mistrust of health providers. Medicine, like most institutions, has historically failed black patients. But Haley did not hesitate to tell Allen his other church members to sign up and get the vaccine.
“It’s so important that our community get vaccinated because we are the group that this virus is attacking more than any other,” Haley said.
Helping church members find resources, and caring about their health is what Haley does everyday. His church gives out food boxes, and even flu shots. And when he got the vaccine, he took a video and posted it on Facebook, so others would feel safe getting the life-saving precaution.
As the vaccine roll out broadens, it’s clear local health departments and community partners will have to meet patients where they’re at: physically and emotionally.
Later this month WVPB’s show Us and Them will feature a full report on racial health disparities in West Virginia. It premieres on February 25th at 8 pm.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.
In a world with large gatherings and even intimate family occasions being canceled, mass vaccination events have become something to look forward to for those getting their shot in the arm.
“I heard people who were 80 and older say they hadn’t left their house since March, this is the first time they get to be around people, and that they were finally full of hope,” said Dr. Sherri Young, the director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department.
West Virginia is vaccinating residents as quickly as possible. Since the start of the year, more than 100,000 senior citizens and many frontline workers have been able to get two shots to fully vaccinate themselves from the coronavirus.
In Charleston, the Coliseum and Convention Center used to house concerts and other events. Now it is the go-to site for Kanawha County residents to get their first or second dose. Most weekends, thousands of people drive to the capital city from nearby towns.
June Leffler/ WVPB
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WVPB
Vaccinating Kanawha County residents is a team effort.
Last Saturday, dozens of cars idled in lines outside so medical workers could help anyone with mobility issues get a shot right through their car door.
But most folks came inside the center, standing in socially distanced lines to get registered. On the main floor, over a hundred people had already been seated. There they would get a shot and be monitored for any adverse reactions before going home.
Gloria Pauley gave herself plenty of time to drive to the downtown facility and wait in line for her second dose.
“My first one, I was in here only about 15 minutes,” Pauley said. “This is a little longer, but I can be patient about this.”
Pauley was one of 2,000 people who got their second dose that day. She knew when she left she’ll be fully vaccinated, just like her husband and a few others in her family.
“At least when we gather, we can take off a mask occasionally. We’ve made it this far, so we’re anxious to keep going for a couple of years,” she said.
Others came in for their first time. More than 1,700 got a call over the past 24 hours that it was their lucky day.
“I know that’s a little short notice,” Young said. “But I think by the attendance that you see here, that people were more than willing to drop what they were doing on a Saturday to come get their vaccine.”
Aside from local health department workers, most everyone on the floor was a senior citizen. So 34-year-old Krista Neophytou stood out. She noticed that fact too, and was even a little self-conscious. But her job pushed her to the front of the line. She works as a therapist for an addiction health center and social services.
“We are in the home working with foster youth and all the other at-risk youth in the state,” Neophytou said. “I got the email, and here I am.”
As she got her shot, she let out a quick yelp and then a laugh. After that, she joined others simply to wait so staff could monitor for any adverse reactions.
June Leffler/ WVPB
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WVPB
34-year-old Krista Neophytou is a therapist in Charleston, WV. She works with youth in foster homes and adults with substance use disorder.
As 71- year-old Rick Crowder sat nearby before heading home, he felt fine, but said he’d heard the second dose could put him under the weather.
“It’s a small price to pay, honey, to be able to get this vaccine… trust me I have no complaints,” he said.
Crowder felt lucky to get the vaccine, and he is. While 100,000 plus people have been fully vaccinated, 1.5 million people in West Virginia have yet to receive their first shot. State officials continue work to establish vaccination clinics in the state’s many rural counties as well as for underserved populations.
Gov. Jim Justice has recognized those lost to COVID-19 at every virtual press briefing, but today marked a milestone.
“We’re going to remember them, we’re going to thank them for all that they gave us every day,” Justice said.
West Virginia, on Friday, surpassed 2,000 deaths due to COVID-19. It took several months — from the start of the pandemic to mid December — for the death toll to creep up to 1,000. Six weeks later, the count doubled.
Still, health officials are hopeful given a recent downward trend in daily active cases, despite predictions of a post-Christmas surge.
“We are surprised as well that we didn’t see a bump in our numbers,” said State Health Officer Dr. Ayne Amjad. “But I think we need to also be vigilant and not take it for granted.”
As the state begs the federal governmentfor more vaccines, Amjad said it’s too soon to see vaccinations curb a significant loss of life.
One promising announcement of the day: all willing nursing home and assisted living residents have been fully vaccinated.
The state also announced efforts to close the racial gap in COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
“With proper resources, we’ll be the same way recognized across the country as vaccinating people of color as we are for the general population,” said the Rev. James Patterson. He works with the Partnership of African American Churches, which has been contracted to help get testing out to Black communities throughout the state. At the press briefing, Patterson and state officials said they’d carry those same efforts into vaccination.
All 55 counties will have a vaccination clinic next week. The number of doses available will be based on the senior population of each county.
Since Monday, 133,000 West Wirginians have registered to get their first shot using the new, centralized Everbridge system. Anyone can register online now.
This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. For more stories from Mountain State Spotlight, visit www.mountainstatespotlight.org.
Veronica and Carl Allen have lived in Wyoming County their entire lives. Like many residents of the state’s southern coalfields, they’re older and have health problems that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. For months they’ve lived in fear that they might contract the virus.
Last week, they got a glimmer of hope. On Jan. 13 Gov. Jim Justice made vaccinations available to people 70 and older.
But there was a problem. Instead of getting the vaccine through a local doctor or the county health department, Veronica and Carl were told they’d need to drive more than two hours from their home in Clear Fork to Greenbrier County.
“I was really sorry to hear that they sent our vaccines to Lewisburg,” Veronica Allen said. “I couldn’t stand a trip like that. There’s no way.”
The Allens aren’t alone. In an effort to accelerate the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to West Virginians, the state has been holding a series of centralized vaccination clinics in January, mostly focused in the state’s most populous counties. This is the latest pivot in the state’s vaccination plan, following a surprise announcement at the end of December that left health departments scrambling to begin vaccinating the general public.
“We have been successful in vaccinating tens and tens of thousands,” said Justice, who has been making the rounds in national media coverage of the state’s vaccination successes. “We’re just going to stay right on that.”
But the approach has come with significant downsides. The state’s centralized facilities are less accessible to West Virginians living with high rates of poverty and pre-existing conditions which make the coronavirus especially lethal. Only one of the 10 poorest counties in the state has had a vaccine distribution clinic anytime in the last three weeks, according to an analysis by Mountain State Spotlight.
Map by Ian Hodgson
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Poorest counties
Last week, Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus czar, acknowledged the problems.
“We need to continue to push vaccines to the communities where people live,” Marsh told Mountain State Spotlight. “It certainly sounds like we need to give more help to the folks in McDowell County and Lincoln County and other places.”
And on Thursday, the state announced plans to expand its vaccination hubs so there would be one in each of West Virginia’s 55 counties by early February.
Until then, Justice is urging everyone who’s eligible to make use of the existing vaccination clinics, but health care workers say the current hub system has placed certain West Virginians at an unfair advantage and left rural residents to fall behind.
“The thing that really makes my blood boil is that there’s not equal access,” said Dr. Joanna Bailey, a family physician who serves residents in Wyoming and McDowell — two of the state’s most impoverished counties.
Several of her patients lack access to transportation or have physical ailments that make traveling long distances difficult, if not impossible. But leaving the county is a requirement if patients want to be vaccinated soon.
Last week, Lewisburg was the designated vaccination site for residents living in nine counties, including Bailey’s patients in McDowell and Wyoming.
“There’s no chance in hell that my poor patient from McDowell County is going to be able to travel to Lewisburg on a day’s notice to get a vaccine,” Bailey said. “If the state wants to set up vaccine clinics rather than going through local providers or health departments, that’s fine, but make it fair and make it accessible.”
Despite dozens of vaccines being designated for patients from McDowell County, only three residents on a list of more than 100 were able to make the trip, a health department official said.
A similar problem arose in other counties, too. In Lincoln County where elderly residents who wanted to be vaccinated had to drive up to 45 minutes to Cabell County or go without the vaccine.
“This system is not only unacceptable, but morally wrong for the people that don’t live in one of the counties selected to be a hub,” said Allen Holder the director of emergency services operations for Lincoln County. “Lives in the country matter, too.”
With little notice, some health departments were left unequipped, understaffed and without a communication system in place to efficiently take calls, book appointments and answer questions. In some places, senior citizens waited in lines for hours. In others, some patients were mistakenly given antibody shots — used to treat coronavirus patients — rather than vaccines.
Despite these challenges, demand for the vaccine was plenty. And in more rural counties like McDowell, Wyoming and Lincoln, health officials were vaccinating residents quickly. The biggest question they had was when they’d be getting more doses.
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McDowell County Health Department. Photo courtesy McDowell County Health Department
Those doses never came. The state pivoted and sent large quantities of vaccine to centralized locations in more populous areas instead of distributing smaller numbers of doses equally among all 55 counties. Marsh says it’s largely a matter of logistics.
“Our goals are to create a series of locations that would be able to conveniently serve the population of West Virginia,” he said. “As we are trying to immunize people in the state that aren’t at a facility like a big hospital or big nursing home, we are trying to create vaccine [hubs]… that everybody in West Virginia could access.”
Doing so effectively, said Marsh, requires a large quantity of vaccines, which the state has not received yet. Right now, the clinics are as good as it gets, Marsh said.
The state is planning to address these inequities in early February when it anticipates more doses will become available.
But in the interim, West Virginia’s older rural populations are still waiting.
“If we are only allotted 20 vaccines, that’s fine. Give us 20 vaccines and we’ll get them in people’s arms,” said Bailey, the doctor serving residents in the state’s southernmost counties. “But don’t say ‘there are 50 [for people from McDowell] but they have to travel to Greenbrier to get them.’ That makes no sense. It seems like vaccines are being administered to patients who have the most resources instead of the least.”
Bailey said it’s a sign of both systemic inequality and racism built into health care. Most of her older patients live with chronic diseases that make them more likely to die if they contract COVID-19.
Chronic illnesses like heart and lung disease are especially concentrated in the state’s poorer rural counties. Data analysis by Mountain State Spotlight found that McDowell County has the second-highest rate of resident deaths due to cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease in the state, topped only by Mingo County, which also went without vaccines.
Map by Ian Hodgson
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Sickest counties
Wyoming County had the third highest rate of residents to die from chronic respiratory disease.
Of the 46 clinics to be announced by the state since Jan. 7, only two — in Logan County on Jan. 21 and 22 — will take place in any of West Virginia’s 10 poorest counties.
Poverty isn’t the only factor affecting health. National data shows that Black communities are far more likely to suffer from pre-existing conditions that make the coronavirus lethal. Black residents are also more likely to work in retail and service positions where they may be exposed to the virus.
Yet data on state vaccine distribution shows that Black residents in West Virginia have been vaccinated at about half the rate of white residents in the state.
In the absence of data
Although West Virginia is currently leading the nation in its vaccination rate, and gaining accolades for doing so, the state has primarily aimed for the low-hanging fruit, beginning with health care workers and nursing home staff, and now including some teachers and those who work in higher education.
But as the state receives more doses of the vaccine and moves to vaccinate the general population — people 65 and older as of Jan.19. — the task becomes trickier.
“When you have to get the vaccine distributed out as widely and as quickly as possible, the inequities that already exist have the potential to be further amplified,” said Dr. Elizabeth Miller, director of adolescent and young adult medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Miller has been heading an initiative to encourage vaccination in under-resourced communities.
“Rural communities have been devastated by lack of access to preventive services and comprehensive care,” she said. “It is absolutely critical that rural communities are front and center of vaccine distribution.”
Miller said the key is to find balance between getting the vaccine out as quickly as possible through major distribution hubs — which is what West Virginia is currently doing — and prioritizing the most vulnerable residents who may be difficult to reach. That, she said, is best accomplished through communication with the people working on the ground.
“We have to rely on leaders in our rural communities and listen to them in terms of where and who should be leading the vaccine distribution planning in those areas,” Miller said.
Shweta Bansal, a disease ecologist at Georgetown University, said the choice to target more densely populated areas through vaccine hubs could more rapidly reduce the spread of the coronavirus, but not necessarily drastically decrease mortality.
“One of the arguments for vaccinating in urban centers first would be to prioritize those who transmit most,” Bansal said. “[But] it’s actually quite clear that we really should be prioritizing the most vulnerable first. And the rationale isn’t just an ethical one.”
Evidence from past infection outbreaks shows that prioritizing vulnerable populations like the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions is the best way to reduce the number of deaths.
Like Miller, Bansal said the best way to reach these populations is through direct outreach by health care providers who already serve the community.
One problem researchers like Miller and Bansal see is a lack of data to monitor who is getting vaccinated and where.
West Virginia’s COVID-19 dashboard, maintained by the state Department of Health and Human Resources, displays the number of vaccines distributed by age group and race, but does not record where vaccinations were administered or the number of residents vaccinated by county.
“Data transparency opens doors to more responsive and targeted vaccination campaigns,” said Bansal, who helped develop COVID-19 Vaccination Tracking which collects vaccination data from across the country. Data tracked by her team shows that at least eight states, including Ohio, Illinois and Florida are reporting vaccination data by county, and Bansal said that more should follow suit.
“Without detailed vaccination data, we will continue to be a few steps behind the devastation that the virus is causing,” Bansal said.
‘I just hope I can get that vaccine real soon’
Both experts in-state and out will tell you that rapid vaccine distribution is really hard. It will get better with time.
But the lag-time has its costs, and those costs are being borne by the most disadvantaged residents.
Everyday without the vaccine is a day patients like those served by Bailey are denied access to what could be the difference between life and death, between another hug with a close family member or never seeing them again.
Nathan England
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The former Wyoming Hotel in Mullens, West Virginia.
While residents of counties with clinics are afforded quick access, people like Veronica and Carl Allen from rural Wyoming County face obstacle after obstacle.
Carl, 77, used to work as a coal miner. Later, he worked doing masonry for the Department of Education.
Veronica is a former school bus driver, but after severe glaucoma left her nearly blind, she went to work at the council on aging.
“I’d look at those senior citizens, bless their heart, and I’d think one day that will be me,” Veronica said. “And here I am.”
Veronica is homebound and uses a wheelchair. She has chronic respiratory disease. Carl has suffered several strokes. He’s had a heart attack and has lung problems, and has to wear a machine to help him breathe when he sleeps.
They don’t have any family or kids, but neighbors come into their house a few times a week to help them clean and get their groceries. If either of them got COVID-19 they’d be extremely high risk.
It’s people like them who the current plan has let slip through the cracks.
If West Virginia’s latest iteration of the plan comes to fruition, there will be a clinic in Wyoming County in the next two weeks. But until that actually happens, Veronica and Carl will be waiting.
“I just hope I can get that vaccine soon,” Veronica said.
Reach reporter Lauren Peace at laurenpeace@mountainstatespotlight.org.
West Virginia Health officials announced 14 free vaccination clinics opening this week for West Virginians who are 80-years-old and older.
Hours after announcing the locations, clinics serving the state’s most populous areas reached capacity.
Monongalia and Cabell county locations have no more availability this week, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resource.
In Kanawha County, the local health department is no longer accepting appointments for its Wednesday clinic. However, Cabin Creek Health Systems will begin accepting appointments Wednesday for its clinic on Friday.
The three filled-clinics received more than 1,700 vaccine doses, according to the DHHR. All 14 clinics received 6,300 doses total.
In southern West Virginia, nine counties will have access to a clinic on Thursday at the state fairgrounds in Greenbrier County, where health officials received 500 doses.
Hundreds more doses also went to locations in Randolph, Berkeley, Braxton, Hardy, Harrison, Wood and Hancock counties.
The vaccination sites announced for this week (Jan. 13 to Jan. 15) are located here:
Randolph County Wednesday, Jan. 13 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
LOCATION: Phil Gainer Center 142 Robert E. Lee Ave. Elkins, WV 26241
By appointment only: 304-636-4764
Berkeley County Thursday, Jan. 14 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
