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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, MARcH 6, 2021
Virus vaccine bypasses low-tech older adults
By GILLIAN FLACCUS,
HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
and RUSS BYNUM
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Jean Andrade, an
88-year-old who lives alone, has been
waiting for her COVID-19 vaccine since
she became eligible under state guidelines
nearly a month ago. She assumed her case-
worker would contact her about getting one,
especially after she spent nearly two days
stuck in an electric recliner during a recent
power outage.
It was only after she saw a TV news
report about competition for the limited
supply of shots in Portland that she realized
no one was scheduling her dose. A grocery
delivery service for homebound older peo-
ple eventually provided a flyer with vaccine
information, and Andrade asked a helper
who comes by for four hours a week to try
to snag her an appointment.
“I thought it would be a priority when
you’re 88 years old and that someone would
inform me,” said Andrade, who has lived
in the same house for 40 years and has no
family members able to assist her. “You ask
anybody else who’s 88, 89, and don’t have
anybody to help them, ask them what to do.
Well, I’ve still got my brain, thank God. But
I am very angry.”
Older adults have top priority in COVID-
19 immunization drives the world over right
now, and hundreds of thousands of them are
spending hours online, enlisting their chil-
dren’s help and traveling hours to far-flung
pharmacies in a desperate bid to secure a
COVID-19 vaccine. But an untold number
like Andrade are getting left behind, unseen,
because they are too overwhelmed, too frail
or too poor to fend for themselves.
The urgency of reaching this vulnerable
population before the nation’s focus turns
elsewhere is growing as more Americans in
other age and priority groups become eli-
gible for vaccines. With the clock ticking
and many states extending shots to people
as young as 55, nonprofits, churches and
advocacy groups are scrambling to find iso-
lated elders and get them inoculated before
they have to compete with an even bigger
pool — and are potentially forgotten about
as vaccination campaigns move on.
An extreme imbalance between vaccine
supply and demand in almost every part of
the United States makes securing a shot a
gamble. In Oregon, Andrade is vying with
as many as 750,000 residents age 65 and
older, and demand is so high that appoint-
ments for the weekly allotment of doses in
Portland are snapped up in less than an hour.
On Monday, the city’s inundated vaccine
information call line shut down by 9 a.m.,
and online booking sites have crashed.
Amid such frenzy, the vaccine rollout
here and elsewhere has strongly favored
healthier seniors with resources “who are
able to jump in their car at a moment’s
notice and drive two hours” while more
vulnerable older adults are overlooked,
said James Stowe, the director of aging and
adult services for an association of city and
county governments in the bistate Kansas
City area.
“Why weren’t they the thrust of our
efforts, the very core of what we wanted to
do? Why didn’t it include this group from
the very outset?” he said of the most vulner-
able seniors.
Some of the older adults who have not
received vaccines yet are so disconnected
they don’t even know they are eligible. Oth-
ers realize they qualify, but without inter-
net service and often email accounts, they
don’t know how to make an appointment
and can’t get to one anyway — so they hav-
en’t tried.
Still others have debilitating health
issues that make leaving home an insur-
mountable task, or they are so terrified of
exposure to COVID-19 that they’d rather
go unvaccinated than risk venturing out in
public to get a shot.
In Kansas City, Missouri, 75-year-old
Pat Brown knows she needs the vaccine
because her asthma and diabetes put her at
higher risk of serious COVID-19 complica-
tions. But Brown hasn’t attempted to sched-
ule an appointment and didn’t even know if
Photos by Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo
Barbara Bender answers the door for Store to Door employee Nancy Murphy in Portland as she delivers an order of groceries for the nonprofit
late last month.
Sara Plush, an employee at Fred Meyer, adds a sheet with information about how to get a COVID-19
vaccine to groceries ordered by a homebound senior in Portland through Store to Door.
they were being offered in her area yet; she
for COVID-19. The goal is to get 2 million
says she is too overwhelmed.
of the most at-risk seniors vaccinated soon,
“I don’t have no car, and it’s hard for me
White House coronavirus special adviser
to get around places. I just don’t like to go to
Andy Slavitt said.
clinics and have to wait because you have to
Slavitt says insurers will use their net-
works to contact Medicare recipients
wait so long,” Brown said, adding that she
with information about COVID-19 vac-
is in constant pain because of spinal arthri-
cines, answer questions, find and schedule
tis. “I couldn’t do it. My back would give
appointments for first and
out ... and I don’t have the
second doses and coordi-
money to take a cab.”
nate transportation. The
The pandemic has
AN EXTREME
focus will be on reaching
also closed senior cen-
IMBALANCE
ters, libraries and churches
people in medically under-
served areas.
— all places where older
BETWEEN
Nonprofits, churches
Americans might remain
VACCINE SUPPLY and advocates for older
visible in their commu-
nities and get informa-
people have already spent
AND DEMAND
tion about the vaccine.
weeks figuring out how
And some public health
to reach disadvantaged
IN ALMOST
departments at first relied
Americans over age 65
EVERY PART
on mass emails and text
through a patchwork and
messages to alert residents
grassroots effort that varies
OF THE UNITED
they were eligible, thereby
widely by location.
missing huge chunks of the
Some are partnering
STATES MAKES
senior population.
with charities like Meals
SECURING A
“Do you think every-
on Wheels to distribute
one has internet access?
vaccine information or
SHOT
A
GAMBLE.
Do you really think every-
grocery-delivery programs
one has email?” Denise
like the one which alerted
LaBuda, spokeswoman for the Council on
Andrade. Others are mining library card
Aging of Central Oregon, said. “We just
rosters, senior center membership lists and
don’t know where they all are. They have
voter registration databases to find discon-
nected older people.
to raise their hand — and how do they raise
Reaching out through organizations
their hand?”
and faith groups that marginalized older
To counter access disparities, the Biden
Americans already trust is key, said Mar-
administration said Wednesday that it will
garet Scharle, who developed a vaccine
partner with health insurance companies to
outreach toolkit for her Roman Catholic
help vulnerable older people get vaccinated
parish in Oregon. The “low-tech” approach,
which other charities started using, relies
on door-knocking, paper brochures and
scripted phone calls to communicate with
residents over 65.
“Once you’ve been blocked so many
times in trying to make an appointment, you
might give up. So we are working as hard as
we can to penetrate the most marginalized
communities, to activate networks that are
already existing,” said Scharle, who after the
initial contact offers assistance with sched-
uling appointments and transportation.
In Georgetown, South Carolina, a rural
community where many of the 10,000 resi-
dents are the descendants of slaves, the local
NAACP chapter is using its rolls from a
November get-out-the-vote drive to get the
oldest citizens out for the vaccine. Chap-
ter president Marvin Neal said they are try-
ing to reach 2,700 people to let them know
they are eligible for a shot and to offer help
booking appointments.
Many of those individuals don’t have
internet service or transportation, or suffer
from medical issues like dementia, he said.
“Some are not even aware that the vac-
cine is even in their community, that’s the
challenge,” Neal said. “It’s like they’re just
throwing up their hands in the air and hop-
ing somebody steps in. Because all the ones
I have talked to want the vaccine. I haven’t
had one yet that didn’t say, ‘Sign me up.’”
Outreach workers are also identifying
holes in the system that prevent the most
vulnerable seniors from accessing shots. For
example, a dial-a-ride service in a rural part
of Oregon doesn’t take passengers beyond
their town limits, meaning they can’t get to
their county’s mass vaccination site. In the
same region, only the largest city has a pub-
lic bus system.
Such obstacles underscore what outreach
workers say is a huge demand for mobile
vaccine clinics. Some local governments
and non-profit organizations are partnering
with paramedics and volunteer groups that
specialize in disaster response to inoculate
the hardest-to-reach seniors.
In South Carolina, pharmacist Ray-
mond Paschal purchased a van and a
$3,000 refrigerator to start a mobile clinic
for underserved areas, but his independent
pharmacy in Georgetown can’t get ahold of
any vaccine.
“There’s a lot of people falling through
the cracks,” Paschal said. “These older peo-
ple who have still not received their vac-
cine, they’re going to have all this younger
generation they have to compete with. So
we’ve got to get to these older people first.”
Associated Press writer Sara cline con-
tributed to this report.