SAINT-DENIS – SAINT-Samia Dridi, who was born, raised and works as a nurse in Saint-Denis, fears for her impoverished town, recalling how the coronavirus cut an especially deadly path through the diverse area north of Paris, a burial place for French kings entombed in a majestic basilica.
Dridi and her sister accompanied their frail 92-year-old Algerian-born mother to a vaccination center for the first of two shots to protect against COVID-19 days after it opened last week for people over the age of 75.
While red tape, consent requirements and supply issues have slowed France's vaccination rollout nationwide, the Seine-Saint-Denis region faces special challenges in warding off the virus, and getting people vaccinated when their turn comes.