MADISON, Wis. – The coronavirus can infect just about anyone, but it’s been particularly bad in communities of color. In Dane County, health officials say the highest inequity among racial groups and ethnicities is found in the Latinx community.
According to Public Health Madison & Dane County, Latinx people make up 6.4% of the county’s total population, but account for 15.5% of all COVID-19 cases to date. Over the past month, Latinx people have made up 18% of the cases. PHMDC notes the Latinx community faces disproportionately high hospitalization rates, as well.
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Posted by Public Health Madison & Dane County on Friday, December 4, 2020
When faced with those statistics, UW Health’s Dr. Patricia Tellez-Giron said “health disparities and discrimination” are the first things to come to mind.
“We already had health disparities prior to this, and obviously with COVID, the health disparities didn’t go away,” Tellez-Giron said. “They actually exacerbated all the issues we had with access of care, physicians from the Latinx community, distrust in the institutions, immigrations issues –all of that just got worse with COVID.”
She is co-chair of the Latino Health Council, which has been working on COVID-19 initiatives like vaccine education. Studies show Latinx and Black people express more hesitation to get vaccinated.
“We initially didn’t have a lot of support from the community at large, so we had to start providing for our own,” Tellez-Giron said. “I’m really hoping this brings light to issues in minority communities, in this case Latinx, and the community at large looks into providing more resources for us.”
Other factors like living with extended family and holding essential jobs also play into the higher numbers, she said.
“People have to work two or three jobs. Most of these jobs are essential jobs,” Tellez-Giron said. “Most cannot go home and do jobs from home. They have to be forced to be out.”
“It’s just really concerning,” said Janelle Perez Martinez, who lives in Madison with her husband and in-laws, who are all essential workers. She’s an educator who works in-person.
“The Latino community and culture, we live with our extended family. We might have grandparents that live with us or parents with health problems,” Martinez said. “How many of us can bring (the virus) in? How many of us can be exposed? How do we control it in our household and what happens when we do get sick?”
She did get sick with COVID-19 in November despite following all the safety guidelines. Now she’s grateful for health insurance.
“I thought I was done after isolating. I was getting better with everything else,” Martinez, who has asthma, said. “The breathing problems came later on.”
Her husband, who also has asthma, recently came down with the coronavirus, as well. She said he’s been doing OK and they’ve been able to keep from infecting her in-laws.
“Unfortunately that might not be the case with a lot of families in our community when they live in a one or two bedroom apartment,” Martinez said.
To protect her family and everyone else’s, she shares this message:
“When in doubt, you should get tested,” she said. “You can’t be selfish in these kinds of situations because it does affect the community as a whole. If you really care about your own community and understand that a lot of people don’t have access to medical care or medicine, you should think twice before you go out and maybe doing something that goes against the guidelines.”
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