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City of Syracuse to go door-to-door to reach vaccine hesitant residents

Ellen Abbott
/
WRVO News
Syracuse Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens speaks at a news conference in Syracuse Thursday

The City of Syracuse will soon begin a door-to-door strategy to encourage vaccine-hesitant residents to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccination rates in some neighborhoods in the city have consistently fallen well below Onondaga County’s vaccination rate of about 70%, according to Latoya Jones, the Syracuse and CNY Regional Healthcare Organizer.

"Our city is the sickest part of our county,” said Jones. “We still have numbers in the 50s percentile with vaccination."

Officials hope to reach these unvaccinated individuals using a more personal strategy. With the help of a $600,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the city will train 20 of these health care workers to go door-to-door and offer information about the vaccines in areas where vaccinations need to be boosted.

“We plan to break whatever barriers we find at the door with community health workers, even if it’s helping schedule appointments or set up rides for vaccinations,” Jones said.

Ultimately, she said, this kind of strategy fills an information gap.

“Because everyone doesn’t have internet, everybody doesn’t have a tablet, and some people don’t have phones, so on the ground is the best way,” she said.

The city hopes to have the program ready to go by the end of the year.

Ellen produces news reports and features related to events that occur in the greater Syracuse area and throughout Onondaga County. Her reports are heard regularly in regional updates in Morning Edition and All Things Considered.