LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Crews from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are on the ground, going door to door in Las Vegas to help combat the rise in COVID-19 cases. They’re sharing vaccine information.
Sec. Xavier Becerra of the Department of Health and Human Services and Gov. Steve Sisolak joined forces to address the surge and mitigation efforts.
“More than 99% of those people dying are unvaccinated,” Becerra revealed. “…Those variants are going to keep coming if we don’t get ahead of this.”
He showed how the federal government is here to help during his visit. FEMA has sent surge response teams, canvassing certain hard-hit zip codes and passing out vaccination information.
“Thank you for doing this, for going out there and touching people where you need to find them because sometimes, they cannot come to us,” Becerra said.
He notes these teams are in the area at Sisolak’s request.
“They are focusing on the areas that have low vaccination rates,” the governor shared. “We are putting up pop-ups and sending the surge teams to help with that.”
Surge teams are being sent to a number of cities experiencing spikes.
Sisolak and Becerra visited a pop-up clinic at the Sherman Gardens Community Center. Both say getting more people vaccinated at similar clinics will help combat the rise in cases and hospitalizations we are seeing.
“I am worried that we won’t get a handle on it, but my hopes are that we do get a handle on it,” the governor said. “Right now, having a surge team, FEMA on the ground is making a big, big difference.”
The efforts to get more people vaccinated are ongoing. The secretary also mentioned opening more clinics at popular places, such as In-n-Out.
Becerra says the federal government will be here to help as long as they can.
