These coal communities are protecting sick miners from COVID-19 and pushing Congress for more support

A community health care clinic in Oregon’s Wallowa County has been able to offer mental health services to its clients during the coronavirus pandemic thanks in part to an already-established virtual practice. In place to better serve the rural community, the clinic's telehealth option has gained even more popularity since social distancing became a necessity. Although the practice isn't without its limitations, such as access to internet, overall, the expanded access has helped reduce the impacts of isolation.

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.

What started as a small group of young adults wanting to help their aging parents navigate telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic, is now a multi-state program that provides devices to seniors and low-income people as a way to close the digital divide. The group has grown to over 300 volunteers and partners with local health care providers, who in turn help their patients set up their new devices provided by the organization.

In the New England region of the U.S., community nurses are working to fill a void in health care during the coronavirus pandemic for those who may require medical attention but do not need hospital care. As described by the co-director of the Upper Valley Community Nursing Project, "the last thing the health care system needs right now is a lot of people in the emergency room because there have been complications of their chronic diseases, or they’ve fallen or they have problems with their medications."

The government's response to the coronavirus pandemic eliminated many bureaucratic barriers and increased funding for health clinics across Hawaii, allowing the entities to offer services such as mobile clinics and telehealth. Although it is yet to be seen if these changes will last, the changes have proved successful enough that several legislative measures are now under consideration.

The state of Wisconsin has launched a pilot initiative that aims to help farmers who are dealing with job stressors access mental health services including "a 24-hour wellness hotline, tele-counseling sessions and vouchers for in-person visits with participating mental health providers." While some of the services have proved more successful than the others, as a whole, use of the counseling services has increased, especially as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

In Colombia – where having an abortion can be stigmatizing, in some cases illegal, and now even more difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic – a clinic has set up a national hotline to help women who are up to 10 weeks pregnant aaccess to safe abortions at home. So far, the clinic has connected with 700 women.

In Madison, Wisconsin, the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately impacting the Latino population, but the local community has joined together to advocate for better access to care and information. The efforts have included pop-up testing sites equipped with Spanish speakers, better-targeted messages, and non-medical support like food boxes.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused many healthcare practice to move to a virtual space, but for Spanish-speaking communities, telehealth wasn't a solution on its own. In New Orleans, interpreters, doctors, and patients are working together to coordinate care at one clinic, while another clinic has used personalized text messages in Spanish to stay in communicaiton with patients.

When the coronavirus pandemic caused organizations and businesses to shut their doors, some medical practices, such as facilities that treat addiction, found relief by moving to telehealth services. In Lousiana, "emergency changes to federal and state telehealth regulations" allowed patients to seek therapy and other services via telephone and video, which helped them avoid exposure to the virus, yet still access the care they needed.