THE SAN BERNARDINO
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AMERICAN
“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -R.W. Emerson
NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties
July 21, 2022 Thursday Edition
Volume 53 No. 14 Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92393
Office: (909) 889-7677
Email: Mary @Sb-American.com
Website: www.SB-American.com
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
California’s Poorest County Has Nation’s Highest Vaccination Rate
Ramos’ Roundtable: State Lawmakers Meet Advocates and Officials “On the Ground” in San Bernardino Regina B. Wilson | California Black Media
By Sunita Sohrabji
Success
a
tribute
Imperial County, a rural region in Southern California along the Mexico border, has one of the best vaccination rates against Covid-19 in the nation, despite being one of the state’s poorest regions. The largely Latino population — who work primarily in agriculture — came together to fight the deadly virus, boasting a 95 percent vaccination rate for adults over 18 who have completed the primary booster series. Seventy one percent of Imperial County’s children have completed the primary series of vaccines, compared to about 40 percent in the rest of the state. “Before the pandemic, we had endemics, persistent endemics. So a pandemic only means the entire world is experiencing a crisis such as we did with this virus. But we are experiencing that all the time. We’re experts,” said Luis Olmedo, Executive Director of Comite Civico del Valle.
Luis Olmedo, Executive Director of Comite Civico del Valle. He spoke at a July 13 news briefing cosponsored by Ethnic Media Services and the Vaccinate All 58 initiative of the California Department of Public Health. “Congratulations to everyone in Imperial County on the outstanding job they’ve done getting people vaccinated. You should be very proud of this accomplishment. You’re not only the highest in the state, you’re actually one of the highest in the country,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. The US has seen 88 million Covid infections, resulting in more than one million deaths. California has experienced 9.6
to
grassroots
Latino
million cases, and 92,000 deaths. Low
death
rates
Imperial County has seen 60,000 Covid infections — in a mostly agricultural population of 197,000 people — and 1,000 deaths. Brewer heralded the rates as a success. “Though Imperial County’s case rates are about 37 percent higher than the state as a whole, your death rates are actually lower right now.” “So even though you had more deaths before, because of that tremendous job you’ve done vaccinating everybody, your death rates are actually lower than the state as a whole. And that’s just a really terrific accomplishment,” he said, noting that Covid-19 vaccines are effective against preventing hospitalizations and deaths, but less so at preventing infection because the virus changes as it replicates. Imperial County is currently experiencing a surge of new infections, with 49.5 percent of its population — nearly one out two — testing positive for Covid, noted Rosyo Ramirez, Community Health Division Deputy Director for the Imperial County Public Health Department. This is the third surge the county has experienced.
Rosyo Ramirez of the Imperial County Public Health Dpt. “But although we’ve seen these high peaks, because we have high vaccination rates, we did notice a complete change in impact in our hospitalization and death,” she said. “Our death rates went down as we started increasing our rates of vaccination. And so right now, our deaths have definitely been very low compared to early on before we started vaccinating our community,” said Ramirez.
community
organizers
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Imperial County had very high death rates, with hospitals at full capacity. “We are a very small community. Everyone knew someone who was facing these devastating impacts,” said Ramirez, noting that people were anxious to get vaccinated as soon as vaccines became available. Va c c i n e a c c e s s i b i l i t y The county public health department worked with CBOs, Federally Qualified Health clinics, local pharmacies, farm labor groups and growers’ associations to develop strategies to get residents vaccinated as soon as possible. “We worked wherever we could set up shop to make the vaccine accessible within the community and not just in one location,” she said. One of the most successful initiatives was the “Help US Help Them” campaign which encouraged people to help others without access to computers, or those who didn’t know how to navigate the Internet to get connected and find a vaccine clinic. In-language billboards, radio spots, and newspaper ads also helped to spread the word. Olmedo noted the huge role community based organizations played in delivering the vaccine to Imperial County residents, largely without federal or state resources. Economic and racial discrimination “We come from a history of 100 years of economic and racial discrimination where the majority of the people have been the workers and only a few people have held the power,” Olmedo said. “We were left alone to fend for ourselves and a lot of people fell through the cracks over the decades.” “The federal government never stepped up to provide a single mask, a single sanitizer, a single anything. They did nothing,” said Olmedo. P r i v a t e o rg a n i z a t i o n s provided funding to help community organizations
address the crisis on both sides of the border, he said, noting that they also provided supplies along with warehouses to store personal protective equipment. Producers played a critical role, noted Olmedo. “We started seeing immediately that there were outbreaks within our beef processing plants and other facilities. And so they opened their doors for us to partner with them.” When vaccine roll-outs began in 2021, the state created a tiered process, prioritizing the mostvulnerable populations. “We created our own database that was better than myturn.ca.gov because we were actually able to make sure that we vetted people that were going in, that they actually represented that population that was next. Otherwise they couldn’t register to get that vaccine,” said Olmedo. Luis Flores and his sister Daniela Flores, co-organizers of the Imperial Valley Equity & Justice Coalition, discussed the work of community-based organizations in delivering vaccines to where people worked and lived, and dispelling myths about the shot.
San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus (L) San Bernardino City Police Chief Darren Goodman (R)
Dr. Gwen Rodgers San Bernardino City Unified School District speaking at the roundtable.
Don English SBCSS director of the Children Deserve Success program and executive director of the San Bernardino Countywide Gangs and Drugs Task Force speaking at the roundtable.
Daniela Flores and her brother, Luis, are co-organizers of the Imperial Valley Equity & Justice Coalition Spanish-language hotline Daniela Flores noted that while Imperial County had very high success rates with the primary dose of vaccine, it is severely lagging behind the rest of the state in boosters. Only 47 percent of residents have received a booster. “Farm workers face many barriers to vaccinations,” she said, noting lack of access to health care, transportation issues, and time off work. The biggest issue was language barriers. Her organization set up a Spanish language hotline where people would be able to reserve slots for farm workers. “We would call back farm workers at a time that we knew they could pick up the phone when a clinic was announced and we made the appointment for them,” she said. Funding for CBOs is now winding down as the priorities of the county shift to other matters. “We see less of these strategies used to fill gaps of the vulnerable communities that were used in continued on page 7
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Assemblymember James Ramos listen to the community concerns. Last week Assemblymember James Ramos (D- San Bernardino) hosted a roundtable discussion with community leaders and the Speaker of the Assembly, Anthony Rendon (D-Los Angeles). The informal roundtable allowed community leaders to discuss education, housing and homelessness, jobs and workforce development, public safety, and mental health with policy makers. Don English, Director of Children Deserve Success for San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, and an educator for 28 years, said, "Today was really about emphasizing the importance of attendance." He was referring to the school district's work around chronic absenteeism in schools and disciplinary action that removes students from their usual
classroom setting. English said, during the pandemic, kids missing school hit a high of 30 %. So, he saw the event as an opportunity to highlight the need for more resources with the state’s legislative leadership in Sacramento/ The newly hired San Bernardino City Police Chief Darren Goodman expressed that the police department is working to overcome the challenges it faces to ensure it has all the tools and resources it needs to protect the community. From schools to businesses and religious places to government offices, Goodman says all aspects of his local community rely on public safety. As of last week, "San Bernardino had approximately continued on page 3