As eligibility for the coronavirus vaccines expanded to all D.C. adults on Monday, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) made clear that the city will keep its focus on equity, despite demands from residents and businesses to open access as widely and quickly as possible.

WASHINGTON — The Washington D.C. nonprofit Community of Hope administered doses of hope at its vaccine pop-up clinic Saturday.

The organization has been vaccinating 300 to 400 people at its centers in Ward 1 and Ward 8 each week. But, CEO Kelly Sweeney McShane said there was a high interest for shots at the Family Health and Birth Center in Ward 5.

A dental office manager who became extremely ill from COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic declined initial chances to get the vaccine because he worried about the side effects. He also doubted that he would get infected again. A program director at a health center whose son got COVID-19 initially said no to the vaccine because she needed time to decide whether she felt it was safe.

Washington, DC faces a maternal child health crisis. The infant mortality rate is higher than the national average, and babies born to Black mothers are five times more likely to die in infancy than those born to white mothers. The risk of dying is higher for Black mothers than for white women. Across the city, our neighbors in under-resourced communities experience vast inequities in their health outcomes – including higher rates of disease, trauma, depression, and even death. 

Melissa Esposito walked two miles in the snow to get to her third prenatal appointment. It had been so hard to get a time with the doctor, she was scared to reschedule. 

Danielle Lloyd endured pregnancy in the food and maternal care desert that is Southeast D.C. She worried about the 40-minute drive from her home to the hospital. 

It’s a Wednesday morning at the Family Health and Birth Center (FHBC), a prenatal clinic and birth center housed within a larger federally qualified health center called Community of Hope.