Philly VAX Jawn delivers doses with tunes to combat low COVID-19 vaccination rates

Before Saturday morning, Denita Lloyd had little worry about COVID-19 and no plans to be vaccinated.

The 37-year-old hairdresser rarely gets sick, she said, and has faith in God’s protection. She also has a deep distrust of government, exacerbated by loosened and tightened pandemic restrictions over the past year that seemed arbitrary.

“How things open up, how they close,” she said. “It’s like they do what they want and I hate that.”

A girlfriend had encouraged her to get vaccinated, though, she said, and her child’s father catching the virus gave her pause. She heard on the radio Saturday morning that the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium was offering free, walk-up vaccinations at the Dell Music Center all day, promoting the event as Philly VAX Jawn, and she made a spontaneous decision to drive to the Fairmount Park concert venue and get her first Moderna shot.

As Philadelphia enters a new stage of the vaccination process, where everyone is eligible and vaccine supply exceeds demand, public health experts are concerned that people like Lloyd are not making the same decision to be vaccinated that she did. The greatest racial disparity in coronavirus vaccinations in Philadelphia is among young people, according to newly released city data. For people between the ages of 20 and 44, only 15% of Black residents and 23% of Hispanic residents have received at least one dose. That figure is 49% for Asian residents and 38% for white residents.

”I’m not happy with the gap we are seeing in uptake of vaccine by race,” Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said Friday.

» READ MORE: Black Philadelphians aren’t getting their fair share of COVID-19 vaccines. Faith leaders and hospitals are hearing a call to fix that.

The racial disparity among other age groups is shrinking, the data showed. For residents age 75 and older, for example, 48% of Black residents have had at least one dose, compared to 58% of Asians, 54% of Hispanics, and 52% of whites.

Overall, vaccination rates for Black Philadelphians lag behind other races. Across all age groups, only 19% of Black residents and 23% of Hispanic residents have had at least one dose, compared to 48% of Asian residents and 40% of white residents.

Farley said he was not sure why there was greater racial disparity in vaccinations for young people. Cordero Miles, 35, also vaccinated Saturday, said he had been in no rush to get a shot because of concerns about the vaccine’s safety. He wanted to see the results of months of vaccinations before getting it himself, he said, and likely would not have gotten a dose Saturday if the clinic was offering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the use of which was paused due to rare cases of blood clotting in vaccinated women.

“I wasn’t trusting them at all,” he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted the hold on the J&J vaccine Friday, saying the value of the single-shot vaccine outweighed the risk of a rare but potentially deadly blood-clotting disorder.

Ala Stanford, the founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium and a doctor, said boosting vaccinations among younger people would require convenient access and the promise of expanded freedoms for vaccinated people.

“As things start opening up and people want to do things and this vaccine is your ticket in,” she said, “you will see things change.”

The event Saturday, where she hoped to administer 2,000 first doses, was designed to be easily accessible and appealing. Uber agreed to provide free or deeply discounted rides to the event. The Philly VAX Jawn got heavy promotion through social media and radio, and the city conducted 40,000 robocalls to inform people of the ’90s hip-hop and rock booming from speakers as people waited after their shots to ensure they didn’t have a bad reaction.

“It’s joyous,” she said. “It feels like springtime. It feels like hope.”

Miles decided to get vaccinated because his work as a real estate investor and owner of a junk and demolition company force him to frequently interact with the public, and he wanted to feel safe as his children participated in more activities.

“I care about my family and I care about my customers,” Miles said.

Jayson Bridgeforth, 43, said he got vaccinated mostly out of concern for his elderly mother.

“So when I’m around her I want to make sure she’s safe,” he said.

» READ MORE: See what Gritty brought to the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium

Expanding vaccination among younger people will require positive word of mouth, Stanford said, and people should encourage family and friends to get vaccinated.

The need to boost vaccinations for younger Black Philadelphians has become a priority for leaders around the city. Martini Shaw, pastor of African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Overbrook, the oldest Black Episcopal church in the country, has hosted vaccination clinics at his church, and hopes to target younger Black people at the next one.

“If they’re that age group, and they’re connected to a faith community,” he said, “my approach is always to communicate to them that it is your spiritual and moral obligation to do this.”

Offering walk-in appointments has helped increase the diversity of people receiving shots, Farley said, as have neighborhood clinics offered by the Health Department to get people vaccinated closer to their own homes.

Citywide, though, vaccination numbers are down. At the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which has the capacity to give 6,000 doses per day of the Pfizer vaccine, Farley said 2,600 people got shots on Wednesday and 800 people got shots on Thursday. And at Esperanza in Hunting Park, which can give at least 1,000 doses per day, Farley said 470 people came on Wednesday.

The drop-off is a concern, he said, and the city is working to increase its outreach. But Farley said he is encouraged that there has not been a significant drop in vaccinations at the city-run neighborhood clinics, which are still vaccinating between 400 and 500 people per day.

”To me that’s a lesson that putting vaccination closer to people’s homes is a way to get people who are still unvaccinated to be vaccinated,” he said. “And I think that’s because those people are not opposed to vaccination, but just have many other things going on in their lives.”

Farley said 32% of Philadelphia residents are now fully vaccinated, along with 53% of people age 65 and older.

”We have more supply of vaccine and more vaccination slots than we have demand,” he said. “During that time it’s our job to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated.”