As students finally returned to campus, Santa Ana College launched its Vax for the Win campaign, enticing students to upload proof of vaccination in exchange for a $200 gift card to the campus store. And then — with no update — the site to upload documents didn’t work. And then it did.
The same can be said for the Vax Wednesdays program, which students were told would be available by appointment or walk-in starting Sept. 15. But the college didn’t provide a space for it until the following week.
When they did finally offer vaccines on campus, the providers left once they had serviced the appointments, after only one hour. Now Ralph’s pharmacy has dropped its partnership with us, leaving SAC scrambling to find a replacement.
The administration may not have meant it this way, but at this point it really feels like they just don’t respect or care about the students.
Many of our students work one or more jobs, have family obligations and face transportation barriers, making getting to a clinic to get vaccinated elsewhere difficult, if not impossible. All those reasons also contributed to Santa Ana’s high Covid positivity rates over the last few years. Gov. Newsom listed Santa Ana as home to several of the most at-risk zip codes in the state.
Obviously, SAC isn’t obligated to provide either the vaccine or an incentive program, and we appreciate that the college is trying. But a lot of that value is lost when time isn’t taken to make sure the resources we are offered will be accessible when we’re told they will be.
With everything we’ve struggled through over the last year and a half, the last thing we need is more uncertainty.
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