Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...population-what-does-that-mean-for-a-vaccine/
Mysteriously, COVID-19 hasn’t spread among Seattle’s vulnerable homeless population. What does that mean for a vaccine?
Dec. 26, 2020 at 6:00 am Updated Dec. 26, 2020 at 8:51 am
By Scott Greenstone
Seattle Times staff reporter
When more than a dozen people tested positive for the coronavirus at a homeless camp in South Park in July, despair set in.
“How long do I have to live?” Kenny Palazzo asked his case manager, Dawn Whitson, when he tested positive. Whitson, who works for REACH, the outreach arm of a local nonprofit drug treatment provider, told him he would most likely live, but he needed to isolate in a hotel and quarantine.
But Palazzo didn’t, and neither did almost everyone else who tested positive in this camp. They worried their belongings would be stolen while they were gone. Rumors swirled about homeless people being shipped off to FEMA camps or locked up....
Palazzo just didn’t want to die alone.
“If I was going to die, I was going to die on my own terms,” Palazzo said recently, recounting that time.
These hurdles foreshadow the massive barriers King County will face in 2021 trying to vaccinate thousands of homeless people in King County — particularly people living outside. So far, it is unclear where they will fall in vaccine priority....
Mysteriously, COVID-19 hasn’t spread among Seattle’s vulnerable homeless population. What does that mean for a vaccine?
Dec. 26, 2020 at 6:00 am Updated Dec. 26, 2020 at 8:51 am
By Scott Greenstone
Seattle Times staff reporter
When more than a dozen people tested positive for the coronavirus at a homeless camp in South Park in July, despair set in.
“How long do I have to live?” Kenny Palazzo asked his case manager, Dawn Whitson, when he tested positive. Whitson, who works for REACH, the outreach arm of a local nonprofit drug treatment provider, told him he would most likely live, but he needed to isolate in a hotel and quarantine.
But Palazzo didn’t, and neither did almost everyone else who tested positive in this camp. They worried their belongings would be stolen while they were gone. Rumors swirled about homeless people being shipped off to FEMA camps or locked up....
Palazzo just didn’t want to die alone.
“If I was going to die, I was going to die on my own terms,” Palazzo said recently, recounting that time.
These hurdles foreshadow the massive barriers King County will face in 2021 trying to vaccinate thousands of homeless people in King County — particularly people living outside. So far, it is unclear where they will fall in vaccine priority....