COLORADO, USA — Servicios De La Raza, the state's largest Latino-serving nonprofit is working to bring more COVID-19 resources and information to the community members in Colorado who are the most vaccine-resistant and hardest to reach.
Throughout 2021, the nonprofit traveled the state to vaccinate as many people as possible.
"We go to communities and maybe in one day we get six people, we move to another place and we get 10, and another place, and at that rate we come back with 150," said Dr. Ricardo Gonzalez-Fisher, who works with the Servicios team. He said they have taken roughly 87 trips across Colorado.
By the end of 2021, they had administered at least 10,000 vaccinations. At an event a few days before Christmas, the team provided at least 150 vaccines. Gonzalez-Fisher said some were first doses and pointed to concerns over the omicron variant for an increased interest in getting vaccinated.
"We’re here for everyone who wants it," he added.
As of Jan. 25, the state's vaccine dashboard showed that 38% of all Hispanic/Latinos in Colorado have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. They make up a little over 11% of total vaccinations in Colorado.
To help close that gap, Servicios de la Raza will continue their partnership with healthcare providers to bring vaccines to the communities they serve, and they will extend that partnership to 9NEWS to bring underrepresented communities the most up to date COVID-19 information.
As part of this effort, Servicios de la Raza and 9NEWS will be joining forces on an ongoing basis to present a bilingual weekly livestream segment each Tuesday at 2 p.m.
The weekly segments will feature 9NEWS WATCH anchor Chris Bianchi and Gonzalez-Fisher who will help answer our viewers' most frequently asked questions about the virus and the vaccine.
Together they will also discuss the latest state vaccine data and announce any upcoming resources offered by the organization.
Viewers can watch the livestream segment in its entirety on all 9NEWS streaming devices including Roku and Amazon Fire TV, on the 9NEWS YouTube channel, online, and on the 9NEWS app.
Gonzalez-Fisher will be reviewing all viewer questions and answer them during the segment.
Questions can be sent to the following email: chris.bianchi@9news.com.
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