Reyna Lopez, executive director of PCUN, gets the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine live during a Marion County Commissioner meeting on April 7, 2021 (Screenshot from YouTube)
A Marion County Board of Commissioner meeting Wednesday briefly became a vaccine clinic as Commissioner Kevin Cameron and Reyna Lopez, executive director of farmworker union PCUN, got shots live.
Both said they hoped to demonstrate the Covid vaccines were safe and encourage others to get them.
“People need to see us, we need to lead by example,” Lopez said.
A county health worker inoculated both with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“That’s probably all I can handle is one,” Cameron joked. He said commissioners have in the past received flu shots during meetings to encourage others in Marion County to do the same.
Lopez said she and Cameron have spoken weekly “without fail” about the pandemic’s impacts on farmworker communities and Latinos over the past year. She thanked commissioners for their efforts to address the pandemic’s impacts.
“I feel very good,” Lopez said in Spanish after getting her shot. “I want to tell everyone that they should also get their vaccine because it’s the only way we’re going to fight this pandemic, this virus that has caused so much harm in the community.”
-Rachel Alexander
