White House to open major vaccine center at CSU's Wolstein Center in Cleveland, a largely Black and impoverished major American city
Today, the White House announced that the Biden administration will be partnering with the state of Ohio to build a new major Community Vaccination Center (CVC) in Cleveland.
The new CVC will be located at the Bert L. and Iris S. Wolstein Center on the campus of Cleveland State University near downtown Cleveland.
The site will have the capacity to administer 6,000 vaccine shots per day, and is expected to be up and running by March 17, the White house said Friday in a press release.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine traveled to Cleveland on Friday for a press conference on the matter at the Wolstein Center.
"The whole idea is just do everything that we can to make it easy for people, and knock down any barriers," said DeWine.
Of the more than 25,000 Clevelanders who live within a mile of the Wolstein Center, 67% are minorities, 6.36% are elderly, and most of the households live in poverty.
Led by four-term Black mayor Frank Jackson, Cleveland is a largely Black major American city that is roughly 58 percent.
It sits in Cuyahoga County, the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties, and a Democratic stronghold that is 29 percent Black.
To date the state of Ohio has not requested federal funding for vaccination efforts, but the federal government has deployed over 25 federal personnel to support vaccination operations statewide.
These CVCs will utilize primarily federal staff in support of state and local governments.
And during this pilot period, the federal government will provide limited direct allocation to the site through FEMA .
The Wolstein Center was identified using a range of criteria, most central to those is the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, which takes into consideration critical data points, including socioeconomic status, household composition, minority status, languages, housing type and transportation.
This tool was created to help emergency response planners and public health officials identify and map communities that will most likely need support before, during, and after a hazardous event.
The city of Cleveland is identified as having a socially vulnerable population.
Twenty-five people live within one mile of the Wolstein Center. 66% are minorities, 6.36% are elderly, and most of the households live in poverty.
The White House said that major goal of establishing these joint federal pilot centers is to continue to expand the rate of vaccinations in an efficient, effective and equitable manner with an explicit focus on making sure that communities with a high risk of COVID-19 exposure and infection are not left behind.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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