Low Vaccination Rates Among Latinos Raise Concerns In Chelsea, Ravaged By The Pandemic

A man enters the La Colaborativa offices on Broadway which is serving as the Chelsea public COVID-19 vaccination site. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

At the start of the pandemic, Joaquin Lux thought he was dying.

“I have no air,” Lux told a reporter in Spanish, as he lay in a hospital bed in Boston.

A year later, the Chelsea resident thanks God he survived COVID-19, but still feels lingering effects. Lux says he feels tired and struggles to breathe when he walks a lot or runs even a little. “I don’t feel the same.”

Now Lux faces a new challenge: Getting vaccinated.

After walking into a clinic in downtown Chelsea last week, he learned he was not eligible for a shot, despite his lingering health problems and fear of catching the virus again.

“Please let me know when I can qualify,” he told the receptionist at the clinic, run by the Chelsea-based nonprofit La Colaborativa.

At 59, Lux was not yet old enough to get the vaccine. But this week he got good news. Three months after the first shots were given in Massachusetts, the state expanded the list of occupations that qualify for the vaccine to include food industry workers like himself. Lux now has an appointment to get vaccinated.

Read the rest of the story at WBUR’s website.