How Madison's Latino community is pulling together to survive COVID

In Nashua, New Hampshire, public health officials have set up a Covid-19 testing site in the parking lot of a church to better serve minority communities. The testing site caters to both drive-up and walk-up appointments, and those who setup the site, are also taking part in a community outreach program that aims to better disperse information to local residents.

Comprised of doctors, nurses, and medical students, the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium is helping to bring free coronavirus testing to Black Philadelphians who are "contracting the coronavirus and dying from COVID-19 at greater rates than everyone else." The program, which offers testing via mobile test units to around 350 per day, has gained the recognition throughout the city, resulting in funding from city leaders, foundations, and individuals.

A group of health professionals known as Latinx Advocacy Team & Interdisciplinary Network for COVID-19, or LATIN-19, is helping to bring coronavirus-specific health care access to North Carolina's Latino community. Because the group operates across county lines, they have become well-known amongst the local communities, helping to not only provide much-needed health care services, but also increase awareness around the dangers of the virus.

Promotoras de salud, also known as community health workers, are helping to connect Latino immigrants with reliable and factual information about COVID-19. Using a peer-to-peer outreach model, a team of seven promotoras de salud from Centro San Bonifacio have "interacted with more than 4,000 Spanish speakers in Chicago."

Health officials and Cleveland homeless shelters are working together to prevent a coronavirus outbreak among those who are experiencing homelessness. Mass testing, separate areas for the already tested and those yet to be, and a focus on more equitably disseminating information have been key to helping the caseload stay low, although the shelters are facing limitations such as a slow turnaround time for test results.

To increase COVID-19 testing in one Dallas neighborhood, community leaders, healthcare professionals, and a local church have joined together to implement a testing site directly in the community. Offering 250 free tests per day, the makeshift clinic helps to address the need of community members who may not feel comfortable going to a medical institution that they do not trust.

In Philadelphia, a group of Black doctors formed a medical team to address the Covid-19 testing disparity between different parts of the community. Known as the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, the group offers appointments and makes house calls to test community members for the virus. Although they currently have many volunteers helping, the group is limited by the amount of testing supplies they have on hand.

Community health workers are a key part of Connecticut's public health response to COVID-19, particularly in marginalized communities. CHWs connect people to health care and other services, like rental assistance, help with contact tracing, and effectively increased vaccinations by taking the time to answer questions and dispel misinformation. Living in the communities they serve is a critical part of the model’s success and helps clients trust them more readily. The state now offers a CHW certification program, but the largely grant-funded model would be more sustainable with steady funding.

In the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, local community members are leading the effort to reach out to those experiencing homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic. This effort has been successful in coordinating and distributing testing that is accessible to the population. As the director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations explains, “any public health response that does not center the voices of people who have lived the experience of homelessness is going to come up with the wrong solution.”

A group of health care workers and social workers formed to help connect hard-to-reach communities in Hawaii to COVID-19 testing and information about the pandemic. So far, they have been able to test more than 200 people who were showing symptoms or who had been at high risk of exposure. The director of the Hawaii Public Housing Authority has also reported that compliance with mask-wearing and other safety measures has increased since the effort began.