An Aurora doctor tried to prioritize refugees for the coronavirus vaccine. Colorado told him to stop
In late January, Dr. P.J. Parmar, who runs Ardas Family Medicine, converted a section of an international business center in northwest Aurora into a COVID-19 vaccine clinic. He wanted to immunize refugees in the city, where vaccination rates were trailing neighboring communities.
But in the first few days, he said, about half the vaccine clinic’s shots went to white people, even though the clinic is in a ZIP code where only a fifth of residents are white.
He wanted to immunize more refugees from countries such as Nepal, Burma, Ethiopia, Iraq and Rwanda, many of whom are patients of Ardas Family Medicine and face language, cultural and trust barriers to accessing the vaccine.
So he enacted a policy to vaccinate only people who live in the 80010 ZIP code, which has approximately 43,000 people and is among the poorest and most racially and ethnically diverse in the Denver metro area. He wrote a disclaimer on a sign outside the clinic and occasionally asked people to show their IDs.
Read more: https://coloradosun.com/2021/03/10/mango-house-coronavirus-vaccine-refugees/