Health officials trying to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in Northern California's Butte County are faced with the reality that only 227,000 residents are vaccinated, leaving it 20 percentage points behind the total vaccination rate.
"The conversation about COVID-19 has reached an impasse, and the problem is being denied," said Butte resident Maya Klein, 16, at an information session in collaboration with the Sierra Health Foundation, the California Department of Public Health and Ethnic Media Services. There, subject matter experts discussed the struggle to recover from the devastating Dixie wildfires that are becoming an annual disaster, along with the challenges they face like any other community.
The new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing COVID-19 disease - first reported, according to scientific research, in the central Wuhan region of China - forced the World Health Organization (WHO) to set the start of the COVID-19 pandemic for March 11, 2020.
Since then, governments in different parts of the world established new health safety measures that, to date, have changed people's habits; in addition to biosecurity measures, people were urged to stay at home and work remotely, that is, to assume a scheme of teleworking and online classes; however, the latter could not be applied in Butte due to the threat of forest fires.
Testimonies about the most devastating wildfires that have occurred in California cause displacement among other problems such as rebuilding homes and productivity buildings. It should be noted that the problem of COVID-19 in the region is found in people who have opted for measures other than vaccination. Residents report that people no longer wear masks and are indifferent to the restrictions, especially among the white population.
We have the highest infection rate in the county," said Gridley Councilman Angel Calderon. The problem occurs in people who have positive diagnoses of COVID-19 and prefer not to isolate themselves from the rest as a precaution against contagion; in addition, he pointed out that the Latino community finds it very difficult to pay the expenses required by the disease if they do not continue in productive work. And, when it comes to public policies for these people, they are stagnant because most of the population are undocumented immigrants.
Victor Rodriguez of the county health department provided information on how to get vaccinated on websites in English, Spanish and Hmong to avoid the language gap at: https://www.buttecounty.net/publichealth/COVID19 such information is also available by phone at: (833) 422-4255
