P.J. Parmar has just struck out with a 76-year-old Congolese grandmother. The 46-year-old family physician has been providing health care to Colorado’s resettled refugees for more than ten years and has cultivated a high degree of trust. But not today, not with this grandmother.
“I told her, ‘Corona vaccine, right here, right now,’” Parmar laments. There are dark circles under his eyes, over a mask that’s hanging by a thread. “Couldn’t talk her into it. Maybe next time.”
The “right here, right now” COVID-19 vaccine is at Aurora’s Mango House, a former JC Penney store turned community space that offers refugees and asylum-seekers medical and dental services, retail space for local immigrant businesses, and a highly regarded food hall serving a taste of faraway homes, including dishes from Burma, Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria and Nepal.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
Gov. Jared Polis poses for a selfie with SCL Health staffers at a mass vaccination clinic at the National Western Complex in Denver on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. SCL Health partnered with dozens of community organizations including The Center for African American Health, The Senior Hub and The Center on Colfax, as well as the city and state, to create this pop-up clinic designed to get vaccinations into vulnerable seniors from underserved communities.
One year into the pandemic, Gov. Jared Polis has stood in front of television cameras hundreds of times, more frequently than maybe any Colorado governor in history. And each time he’s addressed the state to release new data, provide updates, and implore Coloradans to stay safe, he’s known exactly who his closest observer will be.
Chris Meagher, a former spokesman for the Colorado Democratic Party and veteran communications adviser to several leading Democrats, has been hired as a deputy White House press secretary.
Currently the top spokesman for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttieigeg, Meagher starts the new job Wednesday, the Washington Post first reported. He will replace TJ Ducklo, who resigned last month following allegations he had threatened a Politico reporter.
âChris brings a depth of experience both in government and on political campaigns, as well as a commitment to engagement, to integrity and to ensuring the public has access to information, and I could not be more thrilled to welcome him as a senior member of the White House press team,â White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement to news organizations.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR news
Snow blanketed the University of Colorado Boulder campus on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. Students were allowed to return to some dorms and in-person classes earlier this month. A few students walked past the University Memorial Center.
Updated 4:29 p.m.
After their faculty and staff were left out of Colorado’s updated COVID-19 vaccine priority list in January, higher education leaders wrote to Gov. Jared Polis requesting doses be allocated to student-facing workers.
In correspondence obtained by CPR News, executive leaders of 18 higher education institutions including the University of Colorado System, Fort Lewis College and the Auraria Higher Education Center sent a letter to Polis and other public health officials on Feb. 1. The week prior, Polis announced the state’s elementary, middle and high school teachers would soon be eligible for vaccination, citing a need to protect teachers doing in-person classes.