Vaccine Inequities: Hundreds Of People From Across Rhode Island Sign Up For COVID-19 Shots Meant For Residents In Hard-Hit Neighborhoods

Dr. Annie De Groot, volunteer medical director at Clinica Esperanza, in front of a mural at the storefront clinic on Valley Street in Providence, R.I. (Lynn Arditi/The Public’s Radio)

Inside a storefront health clinic in a Price Rite shopping plaza in Providence, the regulars are mostly immigrants who speak Spanish, Portuguese and Creole. They work cleaning offices, washing cars and fileting fish in grocery stores.

And nearly one in four of the patients last month tested positive for the coronavirus, said Dr. Annie De Groot, the volunteer medical director at the nonprofit Clinica Esperanza, or Hope Clinic.

“A lot of our patients have been waiting for the vaccine and dying before they got the vaccine,’’ De Groot said. “So we kind of would like to be able to vaccinate our population.”

But recently, a new clientele began showing up to be vaccinated. “They’re all white,’’ De Groot said. “And they were driving up in  BMWs and, you know, Mercedes and SUVs. And they were wearing mink coats.”

Read the rest of the story at The Public’s Radio’s website.