Vax Clinic’s Busier Day Offers Ray Of Hope

Outreach workers stopped by her diner and convinced waitress Yoseline Diaz to overcome her fears and pop three blocks over to a clinic to finally get that Covid-19 vaccine.

A $25 Dunkin Donuts gift card convinced a 23-year-old skateboarder to stop making ​“excuses.”

Sharie Evans drove by signs for the clinic and decided … it’s time.

And Jason Kozikowski and Bill Forrest decided hitting the links and the pubs in Ireland outweighed continuing to ​“wait and see” how the shots affected others.

Those reasons helped propel a spike in recipients at one local vaccine clinic— offering hope that minds can still be changed among the vaccine— hesitant as the region wrestles with a resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic.

That was the scene at a weekly pop-up clinic in Hamden’s Keefe Center.

Only a couple of people had shown up on previous weeks. Then— days after a rise in hospitalizations fueled by the Delta variant led the state to recommend a return to indoor mask wearing— 13 people showed up on Friday.

In itself that’s a small number. But the increase — and the reasons offered by recipients — offered hope to outreach workers and clinic organizers that the ground game of repeatedly seeking to lure vaccine holdouts one by one can produce results and make the community safer.

The Quinnipiac Valley Health District has partnered with Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Hamden community services to offer Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J vaccines every Friday in the Keefe gymnasium. The walk-up clinic is open every Friday through Aug. 27 between either 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Call the Keefe Center here to confirm clinic hours.

Alexandrea Reaves, a community health outreach worker and event coordinator with QVHD who brainstormed and organized the Keefe Center clinic, said that only two people in total got vaccinated across previous Fridays. July 30 marked the clinic’s third week— and a turning point in the pop-up’s success story.

As the Delta variant spreads and New Haven County Covid case rates climb above the CDC’s threshold for “substantial” transmission, it may seem logical that the number of folks choosing to get vaccinated would increase.

But several other variables more precisely explain why so many individuals suddenly showed up to get their shots in Hamden on July 30.

Trust, Time, & Fears

Yoseline Diaz, who showed up Friday, was about halfway through her shift at Three Brothers Diner when a group of health outreach workers stopped in and told those at the restaurant about the nearby vaccine clinic.

“I saw an opportunity,” Diaz said. She asked for a quick break from serving burgers and traveled over to the Keefe Center for her first Pfizer shot.

Diaz works around 60 hours a week as both a line cook at McDonald’s and a waitress at the diner. She said that she had been postponing vaccination because she was ​“scared” of possible side effects — primarily because she can’t afford to miss any more work.

The 22-year-old also said that she was nervous about experiencing symptoms similar to those she had a few months back when she and four of the six family members she lives with contracted the virus.

“I had a bad headache, I couldn’t go downstairs, my legs were shaking. I couldn’t carry my own weight!” Diaz recalled. ​“I was hungry, but I couldn’t eat.”

Diaz remembered how her father was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance because his symptoms became so severe. He had to rely on a feeding tube for two weeks after a full month and a half in the hospital.

With everyone unable to leave their house — or beds — to run errands or maintain their 40-plus, Diaz said there was ​“no food” around the house.

After that collective health scare, most of her family rushed to get vaccinated when they got the chance. Only one brother, she noted, has yet to receive his. ​“He’s super scared,” Diaz said, though she also said she was unsure exactly why he is fearful.

She said he ​“got in line” at a clinic once, ​“but backed out.”

“He thinks that if everyone else in the house is vaccinated, it won’t be a problem — but of course I tell him that’s not true.”

Diaz said she would go back to work at the diner that afternoon until 2 a.m. before starting another 8 a.m. shift the next morning.

Sharie Evans, a nursing assistant who got partially vaccinated on Friday, also had Covid-19 back in April — while six months pregnant.

Evans said she believes she contracted Covid at a small family gathering for her nephew’s fifth birthday through an attendee who had previously been exposed to someone with the virus. ​“It was less than ten people, and I was the only one that got it,” she said. ​“I was pissed off to say the least — because I was pregnant!”

Her two-week period of sickness began with four days of ​“horrible insomnia.” The only other significant symptom, she said, was ​“bad leg aching for about nine days.” Her doctor gave her the go-ahead to receive the vaccine while she was pregnant, she said, but she wanted to wait.

Three weeks after giving birth, Evans was driving to her sister’s Hamden house from Derby when she saw signage around the Keefe Center. She remembered ​“jokingly” suggesting to her stepchildren that she should finally get the vaccine. Her fiance’s two kids urged her to follow through — and, after dropping them off with her mom, she drove back to the Keefe Center to do exactly that.

“That’s it?” she asked after a nurse took the needle out of her arm.

“I thought it was gonna hurt!”

Evans said that she was not uniquely ​“scared” of the Covid-19 vaccine because ​“every vaccination has some sort of reaction.” But, she admitted, ​“I don’t wanna get sick again or worse. I’m just nervous, because we really aren’t educated on the long or short-term effects.”

She added that she lives with her fiance, three children and 14-year-old nephew. Everyone in her house who is old enough has received the vaccine. Her fiance’s two children, who live with their biological mother during the week, are not yet vaccinated.

Evans said she has not discussed the issue with her fiance’s ex-wife out of fear of ​“overstepping boundaries,” but stated that she does intend to have a conversation with the whole family ​“soon” in order to advocate for the health of both the kids and those around them.

Meanwhile, rising ninth grader Kaylin Harrell arrived at the Keefe Center to get vaccinated ​“before heading back to school.”

Her mother, Shirley Skyers-Thomas, who received the vaccine back in early spring, said that once Pfizer became available for adolescents, things were starting ​“to almost feel like they did pre-Covid.”

“I kind of forgot that it existed!” Harrell jumped in. Skyers-Thomas said that after reading about the Delta variant and a rise in hospital case loads, she remembered: ​“Oh, we need to do that now!”

Harrell said that her family just moved from Bethany to Woodbridge, where she will attend Amity High come September and take courses in theater at Educational Center for the Arts. She said that at her old middle school, kids kept up with masking and sanitizing their desks and belongings, but had trouble maintaining distance from one another.

“A vaccination mandate would be better,” she and her mom agreed. ​“And better enforcement of rules.”

Other than Covid-related nerves, she said, she feels confident about starting at a new school — her strong ​“sense of style,” she asserted, always helps her to stand out and easily find new friends.

“Imma Be Nice & Fed”

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old, who did not give his name, went the Moderna route after some Cornell Scott health workers encountered him skateboarding around Putnam Avenue and handed him an informational flyer advertising the clinic.

One line stood out: “$25 gift card if vaccinated.”

“If you hit an impoverished community, that means something,” he asserted. ​“Imma be nice and fed in the morning,” he said with a grin, choosing a Dunkin’ Donuts certificate over one for Amazon.

“Coolattas, iced coffee, maybe a donut — they’ve got a two for $1.80 deal,” he listed his breakfast options.

He said that he had been ​“unsure and nervous” about the vaccine for months because others in his community weren’t getting it. ​“I was giving myself excuses,” he said.

He noted how his friends often go maskless into stores because nobody can prove any of them were unvaccinated. Sometimes, he said, he feels peer pressure not to wear a mask either— but he said he also felt ​“like a jerk” in the past when he didn’t.

“Maybe I can lead by example,” he said. ​“Maybe now they’ll get the vaccine.”

“So,” he concluded, ​“I guess community… and money…” were the joint reasons he got on board with the vaccine.

Travel Plans Change Minds

While many cited public and personal safety, community, and cash incentives as their reasons for getting the vaccine after a period of hesitation, Jason Kozikowski and Bill Forrest were the only folks to name an international golf adventure, and travel regulations, as their primary motivator.

The two said they have been planning a “post-Covid” trip to Ireland with six other pals since last September in order to play six scenic golf courses and “experience the Irish pubs.”

Without the vaccine, they said they would have to quarantine for two weeks in Ireland post-arrival. “I can’t take a three week break from work,” Kozikowski reasoned.

With the vaccine, “you just have to get a negative test and you’re free to go,” he added. Before he finished that sentence, he was vaccinated with the J&J.

“There’s no way we’re going without it,” Forrest agreed.

Forrest and Kozikowski live in North Haven. When they called a vaccine station listed on the town website, however, they were told that the clinic was no longer offering vaccines and that they should instead drive to the Keefe center.

Both stated that they do not consider themselves “anti-vaxxers,” but that they share a “wait and see” perspective on the vaccine.

Kozikowski said he originally wanted to wait until the Federal Drug Administration fully approved at least one of the vaccines — rather than just offering emergency use authorization— before getting injected.

Forrest added that his wife, who is an immunologist, has observed some patients who have experienced adverse reactions to the vaccine. He said he wanted to wait an additional six months in order to see whether other negative responses occurred across populations who received their shots before he got it himself.

Since he was working from home all year and his wife is ​“hazmatted” at work, he said he wasn’t too worried about catching Covid until the prospect of international travel came into view.

His wife, he added, is not vaccinated, but he said that she attributes her hesitancy to ​“listening to government officials flip flop” on their stances.

“You ask yourself, what’s going on here? What’s the truth?” he said of the way the vaccine is discussed in the media.

Either way, both had enough faith in the vaccine to get their shot in exchange for seven days overseas.

When the nurse suggested the pair take tylenols post vaccine, Kozikowski asked, ​“and some beer too, right?”

“Live your life as you normally would,” she responded. ​“And stay hydrated.”

Consistency & Clarity

While every individual must go through a different decision-making process concerning when and if to get the vaccine, new efforts taken by local health organizations appear to have expedited vaccine-positive outcomes to many independent deliberations.

For example, the Keefe Center clinic is the only consistent vaccine pop-up in Hamden specifically geared toward people of color.

Alexandrea Reaves is largely to thank for that initiative. The 25-year-old, who previously worked full-time as a bank teller, finally got to flex some of the skills she picked up through her public health master’s degree this year after receiving a temporary job position with QVHD.

Quinnipiac Health recently applied for grant money through the vaccine equity partnership funding grant. Reaves found a two month job figuring out how to spend some of that money.

Reaves said that, in addition to Hamden, she works with Bethany, North Haven, and Woodbridge through QVHD. Hamden has the highest proportion of folks of color compared to those other towns— and the lowest vaccination rate. About 62 percent of Hamden residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine compared to about 75 percent of Woodbridge.

Robin Moody-Davis, the marketing and outreach coordinator for Cornell Scott, told the Independent at a recent but unrelated vaccine pop-up that Cornell Scott is currently focusing their vaccine efforts on New Haven, where only 55 percent of residents have gotten at least one dose. Cornell Scott has multiple health sites in New Haven and launches their own pop-ups in the city, but only come to Hamden when a community partner reaches out and asks for their services.

In this case, Reaves asked for nurses to come to the Keefe gymnasium— the place where she used to hang out after school growing up in town.

She said she chose the Keefe Center because it is located in Southern Hamden, the part of Hamden that is home to the most people of color, while still in a central location that allows individuals from all over to access it via public transportation.

In addition to pop-ups at block parties, barbershops, and liquor store parking lots, Reaves has been working to create a space in Hamden that regularly offers the vaccine. She also planned to offer shots at Hamden’s town center farmer’s market on Thursdays, but that has been cancelled almost every week this summer due to rain.

“Consistency really matters,” said Carlah Esdaile-Bragg, who leads community relations for Cornell Scott.

“It’s harder than you think to get the word out,” Reaves asserted.

Turnout has most likely grown so quickly and dramatically at the clinic because there are virtually no other community-oriented vaccine spots that operate on a regular basis. It takes time to draw individuals’ attention to those resources, and to build trust in communities where vaccine hesitancy can be linked to experiences with systemic injustice.

Reaves said that she often hears Black and Brown folks tell her, ​“I don’t want to be another experiment.” Whether it’s lack of education or fear of the power structures that surround health in America, Reaves is working to facilitate honest conversations between community members about their concerns.

Reaves shared that she was originally unsure as to whether or not to get the vaccine because of a lack of understanding regarding ​“what’s in” those shots. But after she got the job with QVHD, she said she was exposed to Covid-19 experts and health professionals who supported her in doing the fact-based research she needed to back her decision to get vaccinated.

“It’s up to you, everyone has their right to decide whether or not to get the vaccine,” she said. ​“But let’s talk about it.”

Pearl Mckee, Tajah Maximin, Valeria Tamayo, Alexa Bradley, and Ruth Rodriguez are one group of outreach workers employed by Cornell Scott and the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement whose jobs specifically entail discovering, listening to, and educating skeptical folks. They go out within Hamden every Friday during the same hours the Keefe clinic is open.

Mckee and Tamayo were both hired as bilingual outreach specialists for Cornell Scott, part of an initiative to create a base of interpreters and communicators who can speak to community members in their first languages, including Arabic and Spanish.

Because all of those outreach workers are also folks of color, many of them have experienced similar concerns and circumstances to those they meet while walking the town’s streets. On Friday, nearly all of them expressed an initial sense of hesitancy that disappeared after finding health-related employment that provided them with educational resources. And many of them, like many of those who came out to get vaccinated on Friday, also contracted and suffered from Covid-19 this year.

On Friday, those outreach workers said that they had recognized individuals they had talked to weeks ago finally come by to get vaccinated. Trust and understanding, they said, are the key variables that truly drive an individual’s desire and decision to get vaccinated for the good of their larger communities.

At the same time, the clinic is fulfilling a need apparent in other communities. Many of the individuals who strolled into the Keefe Center on Friday did not live in Hamden, but in nearby towns where vaccination opportunities were more difficult to locate.

Still, the Keefe Center pop-up is technically in ​“pilot mode.” After funding runs out at the end of August, QVHD will have to reevaluate whether or not to keep certain clinics running. And Reaves and others will find out whether or not they still have jobs in community health.

Check out the poster above to find open vaccine sites around Hamden this week. Reaves organized all of those events— and designed the flyer.