In Southeast Raleigh, volunteers go door to door — and car to car — to promote vaccines

Ocean Reeves was watching when President Joe Biden received the COVID-19 vaccine on live television. That was when Reeves decided he would get vaccinated once he became eligible for the shot in April.

Asked why seeing Biden get vaccinated in public influenced him, Reeves, 18, said simply, “Because he’s the president of the United States of America.”

Reeves said his mother and sister were vaccinated. So was a friend who stood next to him outside an apartment complex in Southeast Raleigh on Tuesday afternoon, as volunteers went door to door encouraging COVID-19 shots in an area lagging in vaccination.

About an hour earlier, just a few blocks away, prominent Biden administration officials made a brief stop to meet with the local community and nonprofit organizations that have been doing this vaccine outreach for months in low-vaccination neighborhoods throughout the Triangle.

Reeves said he got his shot to stay safe, but he knows not everyone his age is as enthusiastic about vaccines as he is.

“They don’t want to get COVID. They think it’s got COVID in it,” Reeves says.

None of the vaccines approved for use in the United States — neither Pfizer and Moderna’s two-dose vaccines nor Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine — contain the live coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means “a COVID-19 vaccine cannot make you sick with COVID-19,” the CDC says.

Michael Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Dr. Cameron Webb, a White House policy advisor for COVID-19 equity, spoke Tuesday with the volunteers before they went to the nearby Pines of Ashton apartments. They thanked the groups for their targeted outreach and emphasized the importance of grassroots canvassing at this stage in the vaccine rollout.

The Biden administration wants every state to vaccinate at least 70% of its adults with one shot by July 4 — a goal that North Carolina is not projected to meet until November.

“The president has made it his mission to try to get that number up to 70% by July 4th,” said Regan, a former North Carolina environmental official. “In order to do that, it’s going to take every single one of us.”

Regan and Webb’s visit to Raleigh came hours after they toured a pop-up vaccination clinic in Charlotte, and is part of the White House’s monthlong campaign to promote vaccines in parts of the country where vaccination rates have been dwindling. Others touring the country include Vice President Kamala Harris, who traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, on Monday, and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who visited Memphis and Birmingham on Wednesday.

After an initial surge in vaccinations, the rate of shots being administered in North Carolina has been falling. The number of daily shots given during the week of June 7, 152,257, has dropped by nearly 350% from the peak of 685,518 shots that were administered during the week of April 5, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

As of Tuesday, 55% of North Carolina adults had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. A recent News & Observer analysis of state and federal data shows that most people who remain unvaccinated are concentrated in areas of the state with the lowest household incomes.

That means that even in more urban and wealthy counties like Wake, there are several neighborhoods for groups like El Centro Hispano, a local community empowerment organization, to target during their canvassing drives.

Objections to vaccination

The group has been doing vaccine outreach in lower-income and low-vaccination neighborhoods around the Triangle area since February, according to CEO Eliazar Posada. Most people who remain unvaccinated are basing their decisions on a lack of trust, not necessarily in the vaccines or the science behind them, but more so in the government or organizations administering shots, Posada said.

Another significant barrier for some has been access, when it comes to finding a vaccination site, or trying to make an appointment. “We’ve been working with employers to make sure that folks have the time they need to take,” he said.

A group of around 30 volunteers fanned out across several apartment buildings after Regan and Webb’s remarks Tuesday afternoon. Each volunteer was given 25 flyers with information about the vaccines and nearby vaccination sites. The aim was to distribute all the flyers to those who answered at their doors, or to leave them behind for people who weren’t at home, said one volunteer, Idalia Arellano, from Southeastern Healthcare of NC.

Over the course of an hour, the volunteers went from door to door, asking those who answered if they had been vaccinated, and if they hadn’t, if there was a reason why they hadn’t been able to or weren’t interested.

Many people were not home or did not come to the door, something Arellano said volunteers had come to expect after months of canvassing. A handful of those who did said they had received their shots. Those who did not offered a variety of reasons.

At one house, a mother said her daughter had been vaccinated but told volunteers she was not interested. Another parent said they were waiting for their 8-year-old child to become eligible. At least one person said they were scared of getting the vaccine.

The volunteers also spoke to people walking outside on the sidewalk, and even a few people sitting in their cars with their windows rolled down. Antoine and LaTasha Evans, residents of the neighborhood, were getting ready to drive out when volunteers asked if they would answer their questions.

In an interview, LaTasha Evans said she was vaccinated in April. Antoine paused for a moment. “I want to be accurate,” he said, and pulled out his vaccination card, which showed he got his shot on May 19.

LaTasha Evans said she hesitated at first to sign up for her shot after becoming eligible. “Like some of the other people [I] was wondering if it’s going to really work, and then [I was] worried about side effects,” she said, citing migraines and bruising in particular.

Antoine Evans, who works in security, said he had COVID-19 in January and had to quarantine in a separate room while staying home from work for two weeks.

“That was a traumatizing time for me, having to be locked away from my family,” he said.

“We have to do what protects all of us,” he said. “Stop thinking of just ourselves.”

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