Senator secures Johnson & Johnson vaccines for essential Soledad workers

SOLEDAD, Calif. (KION) Senator Anna Caballero has helped secure 500 doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine for farmworkers and educators in the city.

Those doses were dolled out Saturday morning.

Sen. Caballero was joined at the event by Congressman Jimmy Panetta, District 4 Monterey County Supervisor Wendy Root Askew, District 3 Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez and Ida Lopez Chan, the MBA Chief Executive of the Soledad Community Health Care District.

The City of Soledad has been preparing for the arrival of vaccines since October and now that the doses are here, the Soledad Community Health Care District says the city was prepared to create this impromptu vaccine clinic in partnership with Walgreens.

"We're able to collaborate with our partners that helped a lot of the folks that are here receiving their vaccine, fill out the adequate forms and upload all that information into the Walgreens platform, so really making it an efficient process," says Ida Lopez Chan, CEO of Soledad Community Health Care District.

Ida Lopez Chan, along with organizations like the Grower Shipper Association and the Monterey County Office of Education, are working together to make sure that vaccine is wasted.

 "There's several vaccine clinics going throughout our community so they are helping slot people in so that there's no slot untaken," says Chan.

Soledad has been one of the hardest hit communities during the pandemic. Supervisor Chris Lopez says they want to remove barriers to entry and provide more clinics for Soledad.

"It means that folks are facing one less barrier to get to the vaccine, coming into south county, coming into a community which for a long time hasn't had access to this vaccine is critical," says Lopez.

Lopez says that efforts are underway to create more channels to flow vaccine out to Monterey County and into people's arms.