LI group plans COVID-19 vaccine rollout for hard-hit communities

A broad swath of Long Island officials — from those in government to community leaders to clergy — are developing strategies to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccine gets to minority communities hard hit by the virus as equitably as in other areas — a goal trumpeted by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The Long Island Regional Health Equity Task Force had its first meeting last week and includes about 85 people across Nassau and Suffolk counties who have been engaged in the effort, said Dr. Deb Salas-Lopez, Northwell Health’s senior vice president for community and population health and chair of the Long Island task force.

"We at Northwell Health, because we are a regional hub leader for Long Island, established a sister task force that will work in alignment with the New York State [Equity Vaccine] Task Force for equitable distribution of the vaccine," Salas-Lopez said.

The focus comes at the urging of Cuomo, who said recently: "Part of the state's effort will be a special focus on poorer communities where they don't have those pharmacies, they don't have the hospital, so-called health care deserts, and will be working with health care partners to have pop-up vaccination centers, where we can transport equipment to a church, to a public housing authority, to a community center, and open up a vaccination center."

Of concern, Cuomo noted, was Blacks died from COVID-19 "at twice the rate of whites; Hispanics at one-and-a-half times the rate of whites."

Locally, Salas-Lopez said the goal is to "have all that we need in these facilities" when the vaccine is opened up to the general population.

Last week, New York was in Phase 1A of vaccinations, where eligible recipients include health care workers, nursing home and assisted living residents and staff, certain first responders and others. The state moved into Phase 1B on Monday, to include teachers, police and firefighters, public safety and transit workers, and people 75 and older.

Salas-Lopez said the community distribution plan was "still very much a work in progress. There are certain logistical things these sites must have. The Pfizer vaccine needs ultra cold refrigeration," while the Moderna vaccine doesn't. She said the Moderna vaccine is being prioritized for community distribution because it's logistically easier to use with a normal freezer.

"You just can’t vaccinate any place," she explained. "That’s where the task force can be extremely helpful to us. They know a lot about the communities and where we can do these things safely."

Andrea Ault-Brutus, the Nassau Health Department's director of health equity and a task force member, said they were looking at ZIP codes "hardest hit by COVID" and studied Medicaid and other data to identify "high-risk areas."

Lisa Black, Suffolk's chief deputy county executive, another task force member, said officials are intent on using "trusted messengers in communities," to aid in the community vaccination effort. "The mission of the task force is to provide protocols for treating and vaccinating communities with underlying medical conditions and health disparities," Black said.

While applauding the groups' efforts, Tracey Edwards, Long Island regional director of the NAACP and task force member, said, "My concern is if you just look at who holds the jobs on Long Island and you identify the health professionals [for the vaccine] — doctors and first responders — we are already behind from an equity perspective because we don’t hold those jobs … ." She said the task force has to "expedite those that were disproportionately impacted by the virus."

Salas-Lopez, responding to Edwards' concern, said who gets vaccinated when is mandated by the governor. She added, though, "People in this initial phase are health care workers working with the COVID population, [and] that includes food service people, as well as doctors and nurses. I can't tell you what diversity is in each profession, [but] there is diversity there."

Building trust with minority communities who may feel hesitant to take the vaccine, is also a concern of the task force.

"The county's been working diligently to build trust" with those communities since the emergence of COVID-19, said Lionel Chitty, executive director of Nassau's Office of Minority Affairs. "We want to make sure they see people that look like them" who are talking to community residents to "understand the importance of the vaccine."

Task force members Amy Flores, executive director of Nassau's Office of Hispanic Affairs, and Farrah Mozawalla, executive director of Nassau's Office of Asian Americans, said information was going out to residents in multiple languages. "We want to reassure residents in culturally appropriate ways. Everyone," Flores said.

Bishop Lionel Harvey, senior pastor of First Baptist Cathedral in Westbury, Nassau County's deputy director of diversity and community engagement, and a task force member, added: "We’ve disseminated information to a broad range of churches, mosques and synagogues." He said the focus is on getting the community to "believe the science," and urging them to get vaccinated.

Harvey said he was seeing a shift in attitudes.

"I’m finding that people are starting to be more accepting of the message," Harvey said. "It helps that the nurse at Northwell who got that first shot was a person of color who looks like the people who have been suffering disproportionately, and that kind of helped."

Sandra Lindsay of Port Washington, a critical care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, on Dec. 14 became the first person in the state to receive the vaccine.

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By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie