translated from Spanish: Thus Arturo managed to obtain a COVID vaccine, despite living on the street

It is 8:00 am and José Arturo, 65, arrives on time to the appointment in the Plaza de la Solidaridad, in the Historic Center of Mexico City. He lives in one of the surrounding streets and hopes that staff of the Association El Caracol will come for him to take him for a bath and accompany him to get the COVID vaccine.
He is the first person from street populations who, supported by El Caracol, will receive a vaccine in Mexico City, of the 10 that have so far managed to register on the waiting list.
-Did you imagine that you were going to vaccinate him?
-Well, vaccines are a general possibility. The government and the UN would benefit us, so I was waiting.
Once Caracol’s staff arrives, José Arturo hides the plastic bags with his belongings – clothes, food and some materials to recycle – in a gardener, so that no one steals them or throws them away.
José Arturo arrives on time to the appointment with staff of El Caracol, who will accompany him to his appointment to receive COVID vaccine.
Minutes after 8:30 am, up an application taxi to the park, so you can go for a bath and breakfast.
As he climbs, the driver listens to the conversation between José Arturo and Karen, the accompanying Caracol educator. He asks if they’re going to vaccinate him, and when he hears he does cast a nice look at the rearview mirror.
-There are drivers who wouldn’t let him up, and that’s that you listen to everything… but I’m good at supporting him. Congratulations, don, congratulations.
You may be interested in: ‘It’s like you don’t exist’: People who live on the street struggle to have identity documents
***
While he waits for his appointment time to get vaccinated, José Arturo has breakfast. Even if he’s sitting at the table, he loads a broken backpack with his greatest treasure: books.
-Do you like to read?
-Yes, I read a lot. I like literary criticism, I bring the books because if I leave them they steal them from me… people don’t read, but they take them away if I leave them on the street.
He says that 30 years ago he came from Guanajuato to the then Federal District to study economics at the National Polytechnic Institute. He lived in a student house until he finished his career and had to leave the property.
He then began studying lyrics, but soon his financial resources were finished and that’s how he ended up living on the street. Although he has a family, he says he has no longer been allowed to reintegrate, so his companions on the streets and El Caracol are his only support network.
While waiting for his appointment to get vaccinated, José Arturo has breakfast at the El Caracol facility.
Loneliness, he says, increased with the recommendation of “stay home” and social estating. Fearing COVID, the few people who walk the streets and sometimes offer support were less during the last year.
He finishes breakfast and confirms that he’s bringing his voter’s credential. It’s time to get out of Caracol. The second taxi driver is less friendly than the first to see Arturo carry a broken backpack full of books and two bags that have just given him clothes, but either way he approaches the Internship No. 17 of the Secretariat of Public Education, located in the mayoral part of Venustiano Carranza, where he was told that he will be inoculated.
-Are you nervous about the vaccine?
-No, I’m calm, I’m just thirsty and hot.
José Arturo was summoned to PMI Boarding School No. 17 in the mayoral part of Venustiano Carranza to receive his COVID vaccine.
According to the Government of Mexico City, as of March 24, 537,233 COVID vaccines have been applied to older adults, equivalent to 68% of the 785,798 registered. In addition, there are 150 thousand 987 (86%) who have already received the second dose.
Federal authorities have reported 99,690 COVID contagions in older adults in Mexico City: 60,000,584 between the age of 60 and 69, 28,000 23 between the age of 70 and 79, 9,678,80 to 89, as well as a thousand 405s between the age of 90 and 99.
El Caracol has so far not detected cases of COVID among those who live on the streets of Mexico City, although they have had reports of two suspicious people, who already live in a room who rent, but live and work with their peers. However, they have not been able to corroborate the contagion because no tests were performed.
Read more: From vendors to photographers and writers: My Valedor, the magazine that helps street towns on CDMX
***
Half an hour before the appointment, José Arturo arrives at the vaccination center. It is formed and for a moment it seems that he will be rejected to receive his dose, as his credential has registered an address in Guanajuato, from when he lived there with his family.
Karen explains to the staff of the Federal Welfare Secretariat that José Arturo lives on the street and thatand signed up for the vaccine at Venustiano Carranza as the mayor’s office where Caracol’s accompanying offices are located.
Because his voter credential has a different address than CDMX, José Arturo had to obtain a special registration sheet for the vaccine.
You must wait in a row to receive a special folio for your particular situation and, after about an hour, finally receive the SinoVac vaccine. He is already anxious and wants to leave, but is asked to wait 20 more minutes to be under observation and rule out possible reactions.
On the way out, Karen breathes in relief. She says she was prepared to defend José Arturo’s right to health, should she be denied the vaccine. However, it notes that there is uncertainty as to what the process will be like for those who do not have documents to receive their dose, which are at least 22% of the more than 6,700 people in street situations censused by the Ministry of Social Development of Mexico City in 2017.
José Arturo receives doses of COVID vaccine from SinoVac.
Now nine other people are missing in the same condition as José Arturo to vaccinate in the capital who already have a record, eight men and one woman.
José Arturo is happy but still does not sing victory, as he must receive the second dose again in a couple of weeks. For now, he leaves happy for the Plaza de la Solidaridad: he had his vaccine and even gave him another backpack for his walking library.
 
José Arturo shows proof of the application of the first dose of the SinoVac COVID vaccine.
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Original source in Spanish

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