Forsyth County’s Hispanic Community Hit Hardest By COVID-19

Public health officials in Forsyth County are maintaining their focus on the area's Hispanic community, expanding their outreach through local partnerships. This comes as Forsyth County experienced its second highest daily COVID-19 case count on Thursday with cases of COVID-19 continuing to spike among Hispanics.  

Outreach began in March. The County hired bilingual staff, manned Spanish hotlines, and forged networks with local hospitals and agencies like Winston-Salem's Hispanic League. Executive Director Mari Jo Turner says the group's COVID Facebook live events invite Spanish speaking panelists to cover a wide variety of topics from applying for unemployment during the pandemic to dealing with the loss of loved ones due to coronavirus. She says they're held every Thursday.

“We're going to have Willie Herrera who is a former police officer from New York City and he's going to be sharing a little bit about how do you respond to law enforcement if you're approached by them or spoken to by them,” she says. “We're also going to be talking about cancer services and how do they navigate this world of COVID so that they stay safe?”

Turner says the League has also distributed roughly 2,000 masks, and recently held a ribbon-cutting for its Feed and Read center providing food and books to Hispanic families in need. 

But Turner says many obstacles to flattening the curve among Hispanics remain.

“Some of those individuals are feeling very strong, and that certainly COVID-19 won't affect them,” she says. “And then you may have others who may be working in different plants, they've been exposed to COVID, and the family unit is such that there are often many people living in one home — parents, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents or cousins. And so, it is very hard if someone does have COVID that they're able to isolate.”

On Friday, eighty-five new cases were reported. There have been a total of 1,705 laboratory-confirmed cases in Forsyth County. Of those, 864 have recovered. According to the latest health department numbers, Hispanics make up more than 60 percent of the county's cases. 

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