How efforts work in one Florida community to enroll people for coronavirus vaccines

The need is acute in Florida: The state has the greatest prevalence of a fast-spreading virus variant first identified in the United Kingdom. The emergence of variants globally has added to the urgency of getting as many people as possible a shield of protection against the pathogen.

That task is especially crucial in communities of color, where the virus has carved a vast path of destruction during the past year. Communities like Belle Glade, where Jackson-Moore’s quest to enroll people for vaccination opens a window onto street-level efforts unfolding nationwide.

Jackson-Moore, who has lived in the town for 30 years, knows everybody she meets or knows somebody who knows them — friends, kin, co-workers. In a town of fewer than 20,000 people, there’s a good chance she has a connection. Lately, she has been using it to get coronavirus shots to older residents in Belle Glade, where the conversations ring with the familiarity of a family chat in a city in which 3 of every 5 residents are African American. ...