What we learned registering thousands of our neighbors for vaccines – Epicenter NYC
▻https://epicenter-nyc.com/what-we-learned-registering-thousands-of-our-neighbors-for-vaccines
ça c’est du #data_journalisme !
As of this writing, we have booked more than 2,600 appointments. More than 5,000 people have turned to us for help. Of those, about 1,000 were ineligible, about 1,000 folks found a vaccine via other means, and roughly 400 are being worked on. They just keep coming.
In a recent discussion with Harlem Gunness, the director of St. John’s University’s public health program, we compared notes. Gunness just completed a study of conditions in Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst during the pandemic. After hearing about Epicenter’s efforts, he encouraged us to summarize our findings for broader dissemination.
As a media organization, we know this is a nontraditional way to report a story and we never planned to pivot from a weekly newsletter into a full-service vaccine registration company. But three pandemics are colliding right now:
Systemic racism
Loneliness/absence of community
Coronavirus
On its own, each would pose a significant obstacle to an efficient vaccine rollout. Together, they are creating a public-health crisis and exposing the limitations of business as usual. We at Epicenter feel uniquely positioned to be a part of the solution, born out of serving hard-hit communities, connecting intersectional audiences we consider our neighbors, and leveraging communications across platforms, media and languages.