San Mateo County Leaders Vouch For East Palo Alto Vaccine Equity

EAST PALO ALTO, CA — San Mateo County officials made a case during a press conference on Monday for East Palo Alto — one of the cities in the region hit hardest by COVID-19 — to be prioritized for vaccinations, urging the state and federal government to help.

Despite having the most COVID-19 cases per 10,000 residents in the county for cities with a population over 1,500 — 1 in 6 residents have tested positive — East Palo Alto has the lowest rate of vaccination in San Mateo County. As of Monday, just over 11 percent of its 29,000 residents had been vaccinated, while neighboring Atherton had vaccinated more than 46 percent of its residents. No other city in the county has vaccinated less than 20 percent of its residents.

Standing in front of Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School, State Sen. Josh Becker vowed to improve the situation for a community that houses many essential workers.

“This community has been on the front lines and provided the human capital to allow those of us who have the privilege of working from home to do so,” Becker said. “They have stood with us during our darkest hours, and they must be treated like the priority that they are.”

City council member Antonio Lopez said that COVID-19 exacerbated the existence of “two sides of the Bay Area,” one with instant access and the other living paycheck to paycheck.

“An aggressive vaccination rollot is what the fight for racial equity and social justice is in 2021,” Lopez said. “We’ve been a community willing to fight for a quality of life that is on par with residents from neighboring cities.”

San Mateo County currently doesn’t have any walk-up vaccination sites, but David Canepa, the president of the Board of Supervisors, said that the county’s goal is to set up mobile vaccination sites and get them in hard-hit communities like East Palo Alto.

Canepa was also optimistic that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was recently granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, would be a “game-changer.” He wants the government to prioritize areas like East Palo Alto with a high amount of essential workers by bringing to them the single-dose shot.

“What does that mean? Time is money,” Canepa said. “Be able to get them their vaccine, and then they can get on, instead of going back for the second dose in two or three weeks. That maybe is the best way and the equitable way in dealing with this.”

Larry Moody, a former East Palo Alto mayor, said that the community needs assurance that local, state and federal governments are working to ensure that they are not being left behind.

“Our community really needs the confidence to know that our elected officials are advocating for us while they’re working their second shift and third shift jobs and opportunities,” Moody said. “We need to have that confidence restored that local government is here for our behalf and for our service.”

Becker, recently elected to represent the city in the state senate, pledged to do that.

“For generations, East Palo Alto has been left out of most every substantive conversation in this region,” Becker said. “Today, I say this is a moment of history to right this wrong and let East Palo Alto know they will no longer be left out of the conversation, that they will have a place at the table, because they matter.”