Boston doctors will volunteer time to educate Chelsea residents about vaccine

CHELSEA, Mass. — For months now, Boston 25 News has been covering hard-hit Chelsea, where the city has been in the red zone. It was once the epicenter of the virus. Now, Boston area doctors are teaming up with local city leaders to educate the public about the vaccine. They’re taking on a much different approach than other cities and towns.

“I have diabetes, high pressure,” said Jesus Liurfino, a 58-year-old Chelsea man.

Liurfino says he’s at high risk for catching COVID-19 and is patiently waiting to get vaccinated.

While others in the Chelsea area have a lot of questions about the COVID-19 vaccine.

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“I think I’m going to wait a little bit to take it and see how everyone else will react,” said Daniela Moranda from Chelsea.

Since the start of the pandemic, month after month, we’ve been reporting from hard-hit Chelsea.

A city filled with essential workers, hardworking immigrants mostly from Central America.

“It was a big impact, a lot of people struggling,” said Moranda.

Not being scared of the vaccine is what local leaders are working on getting across to the folks here, in Spanish, and English.

We are back in hard hit Chelsea today.

Boston area doctors are teaming up leaders in Chelsea to educate the public about the COVID-19 vaccine.

The city is taking on a different approach by doing door knocks.

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“We need outreach,” said Dr.Julia Koehler.

Dr. Koehler is an infectious disease doctor in Boston, who will be teaming up with other doctors to educate the residents of Chelsea.

“We are going to be door knocking with La Colabrativa and offer the residents any questions they have,” said Koehler.

“These are my patients, I’ve seen them before, after, during the pandemic,” said Doctor Sudhakar Nuti, a primary care physician.

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For Nuti, he has a personal connection to the people of Chelsea.

“I’m an immigrant myself, I grew up poor. So I walked in these shoes, and I’m in a privileged position to pay it forward,” said Nuti.

And those doctors will volunteer their time. Local leaders tell me, they’re relentlessly working to get everyone vaccinated because most of these people here need to get back to work. They’re in the service industry, and they will help get the economy up and running.

They plan on going door-to-door, once more vaccines are available in the city. There are still thousands of people here who need help, and need to get back to work. But like most of the hard-hit cities we’ve been covering, things are getting back to normal, slowly.

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