A team effort all the way around in Avenal vaccination rate success
For this small town in the southwestern corner of Kings County, it has taken a village to win against an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Avenal Mayor Álvaro Preciado said the city has been proactive in its battle against COVID-19 since the pandemic started in 2020.
The measures range from giving businesses and the community free masks, free soap, free sanitizer to establishing an ordinance to mandate that people inside any business have a mask and imposing fines to make the ordinance enforceable.
“But luckily, our community cooperated and we didn’t have to give any fines,” Preciado said. “Businesses did cooperate.”
Not only did Avenal have the lowest COVID cases confirmed in Kings County at one time, but also had the highest vaccination rate too, something that caught the attention of high-ranking state officials.
In November 2021 Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Avenal to promote COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots.
Back then Kings County had the lowest vaccination rate per capita of any county in the state, while Avenal was a local outlier. With about 75% of residents vaccinated in November 2021, Avenal had the highest vaccination rate in Kings County.
“So, I believe this enforces our believe that the vaccination is the best defense toward COVID-19,” Preciado said, adding that at every single city council meeting “we encourage the community to get vaccinated, to keep the distance and to wear a mask and follow the protocols for that the state mandates.”
Newsom praised the leadership of Avenal elected officials, from the school district to city hall, for their resiliency and resolve to keep their constituents healthy and safe.
“I’m mindful of how hard this has been,” Newsom told Avenal’s leaders during his visit as he acknowledged their leadership of defying the odds. “You are stepping up and stepping in in this pandemic.”
From city government to school officials, everyone is on the same page when it comes to getting as many people as possible to be fully vaccinated against the virus that has changes many people’s lives.
As Kings County enters its third year of the pandemic, in Avenal, 80%t (6,548 people) of the adjusted eligible population (8,135 people) have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 70% (5,728 people) are fully vaccinated, according to the county’s COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard as of Feb. 16.
Kings County has 51 percent (66,960 people) of the adjusted eligible population (131,424 people) fully vaccinated. And 58 percent (76,183 people) have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Those numbers exclude the incarcerated population in the county’s prisons which includes Avenal State Prison and Corcoran State Prison and Substance Abuse Treatment Facility.
The county adjusted Avenal’s COVID-19 vaccine coverage of eligible population to exclude incarcerated population at Avenal State Prison.
Also, the numbers reported on the county’s dashboard of the vaccine coverage rates have been updated to include the newly eligible 5-12 population.
According to the dashboard, the overall vaccine coverage has decreased due to the increase in the vaccine-eligible population, but the actual number of residents vaccinated has not changed.
While there has been an ongoing hesitancy to get vaccinated in Kings County, you could call Avenal’s high percentage of vaccination rate is a successful story that has overcome the challenges the rest of the county is facing.
And what would you say is Avenal’s secret to this success?
“It’s a team effort all the way around,” said Lupez Chávez, Avenal’s senior code enforcement officer and school board president.
Having grown up in the community, Chávez has good relationships with business owners and local organizations, which allowed him to go to each of them presenting and explain why the mask ordinance was important, why getting vaccinated was important to both community members and parents.
Chávez was one of the first ones to get vaccinated in Avenal and has shared it publicly.
“Even when I was sick with COVID, I was also very open about it and shared it, made people aware of it,” he said.
“I think it has been the leadership on the ground here in Avenal and the partnerships that we’ve been able to develop,” said Darcy Pickens, interim director for Kings County Department of Public Health.
Partnerships that involve many, from the county’s supervisor who represents that area to the city’s mayor.
“The school district has been absolutely fundamental in bringing testing to this community and bringing vaccination to this community,” said Pickens. “And in talking to the people on the ground about how important these measures are, I really have to hand all of the success in Avenal to them.”
Pat Sánchez, superintendent of the Reef Sunset Unified School District, said that first and foremost, what they started their success was understanding that their priority was to help kids get in school.
“Everyone agrees with that. And based on that premise, we just tried to make it easy to get vaccines. We tried to make it easy to get the support you needed, the testing. And I’d like to say we’d like to make it. So, it’s kind of boring and routine so we can get you back to school,” Sánchez said, adding that partnerships like with the county health department has help them “connect the dots with the right people.”
“We really just work with our community, listen to what they needed and treated them with dignity and respect. And that’s really worked well for us,” said Sánchez, adding that over 85 percent of the school district employees are vaccinated and test every week for free.
“We call it testing Tuesdays,” Sánchez said.
Pickens said the county health department will continue to be in Avenal for service, “but it’s really them that are making this happen.”
She said vaccinations “is a choice that protects the individual and everyone around him or her.”
“So, we continue to encourage people to get vaccinated. We have vaccine clinics available in King’s County, seven days a week on Sundays, in the evenings,” Pickens said, adding that the county health department strongly encourage people to get their boosters, their first dose and that pediatric vaccines are available at all county clinics.
“We hope people make the choice to protect themselves in their community,” Pickens said.
Esta historia fue publicada originalmente el 22 de febrero de 2022, 11:54 a. m..
