Beating the Pavement to Vaccinate the Underrepresented — And Protect Everyone

The rollout of vaccinations in California, as in many states, has been slow and chaotic. More than 5 million of the 24 million adults in the nation’s most populous state have been at least partially vaccinated, while an additional 5.6 million are fully vaccinated. Come April 15, all adults in California will be eligible to sign up for a vaccine, and by early summer the goal is to have plenty of vaccine for any adult who wants it.

But the country needs to get the vaccination rate to about 75% to keep the virus from easily spreading — a level called herd immunity by experts on infectious diseases. But even that figure assumes the population is homogenous in terms of vaccination. That’s why the state’s ability to stave off another covid surge may rely on people like Garcia and Marroquin — community health workers and organizers doing time-intensive, laborious work — to prevent pockets of the population with low vaccination rates in remote or isolated communities from becoming a tinderbox for a new covid surge.