Veronica Tavena-Pérez thought she would stay home to take care of her 3-year-old son after retiring in November from her social assignment of the Pascua Yaqui tribe.
She at home watching a movie with her son when the phone released one day last May.The mayor of Guadeloupe, Valerie Molina, online and asked to meet in the city corridor the next day.
Guadeloupe, a city of approximately 6,600 more people located along Interstate 10 between Tempe and Chandler, is in trouble.
Cases of COVID-19 were expanding into the predominantly Hispanic, Native American, or a mixture of both.Several generations of families live together and many citizens are service workers, considered essential in the pandemic.
Studies show that the new coronavirus has disproportionately affected Native American and Hispanic communities.
They needed a voice of acceptance as true on the network to lead efforts to lessen the spread of the virus, the mayor told him.
Tavena-Pérez of Guadalupe agreed.
“I’ve been working on the net for years,” he says.I had to help.”
At the time of his return to paintings in June, the city had 87 instances shown.The number of instances reached 131 on June 16 before the coVID-19 reaction team leading saw things begin to improve.
Response team partners come with Maricopa County, the Yaqui Easter Tribe, and Arizona State University.
They did tests. They delivered food and must-have items to others recovering from COVID-19 at home, and sensitized citizens to the importance of dressing in masks and social distance.
And his efforts to be working.
Rumors of the first case of COVID-19 in Guadeloupe spread throughout the city in March.
Residents called the mayor to get data on the case: who and where did the virus get the virus?
“Should I talk about my grandmother?”
“My mom lives there and suffers from underlying illnesses,” another caller worries.
Molina had no data to give. It wasn’t even a case shown.”The mere fact of having one made the whole network panick,” he said.
Calls continued over the next two months as the number of cases increased.Residents think city officials were keeping them in the dark.
“We didn’t really have the data to share,” Molina said.
Aside from self-reported citizens, city officials can only turn to public fitness knowledge which is of little use. The Arizona Department of Health Services reports cases through zip code. Guadalupe belongs to a larger Tempe zip code with approximately 46,000 people.
Despite the lack of data, city officials felt they were experiencing an increase in cases.Calls from citizens who reported symptoms and positive effects of control had accumulated until mid-May.
Then Arizona State University researchers contacted city officials with a warning: water samples taken from the city’s sewer formula showed the best degrees of viruses.The ASU had been tracking COVID-19 lines in Tempe and Guadeloupe sewage since March.The concentration meant there was probably an extended network in the city.
Armed with the wastewater study, Molina pointed to a more localized knowledge of Maricopa County officials.
County fitness officers began reviewing COVID-19’s positive verification documents to track Guadeloupe addresses and provided city officials with weekly updates on the number of cases and hospitalizations as of June 1.
It’s “revealing,” Molina said.We had a lot of other people in our garden all this time who were looking for this alone and we didn’t know it.”
Molina spent the next two weeks calling and sending emails to regional and state organizations and leaders to help.He headed to other small towns, such as Tolleson in the other aspect of Phoenix, for percentages of resources and contacts.
With an annual budget of around $12 million and 17 full-time employees, Guadeloupe’s resources were limited.
It is at this time that Molina called Tavena-Pérez.
Tavena-Pérez and Graciela Holguin, a hospice employee with family ties in Guadeloupe, have combined as promoters.
A promoter is an all-Hispanic program that serves as a bridge between public fitness officials and residents. A promoter is a lay user with deep ties in a network to identify credibility and trust. Historically, in Latin America and the United States, promoters have addressed chronic diseases and other fitness problems.
While other teams have tried to come and help Guadeloupe over the years, locals may distrust foreigners, Molina said.
“It’s not that they don’t need help, it’s that they don’t perceive who you are and what the goal is,” Molina said.”But if we bring someone from our network to meet other people, with whom they grew up, they will most likely open their door than others.”
Molina grew up in Guadeloupe and recalls the effectiveness of advocates who preach children’s fitness and prevent pregnancies in adolescence.The program runs through a non-profit company that had since closed, but Molina saw a role for promoters in the pandemic.
The town hired Tavena-Pérez, who is Yaqui, and Holguin on a part-time transitional regime.
On a recent Thursday, Tavena-Pérez walked through the fence of a resident’s space and placed a box of food and other pieces in a chair underneath the circle of quarantined relatives as they recovered from COVID-19.
Tavena-Pérez and Holguin have been handing over such boxes to families affected by the virus since June.
Food boxes come with essential foods such as fish, poultry, eggs, rice and beans and occasional products and fruits.The village provides detergent for clothing, disinfectant wipes, toiletries and other parts requested through families.
Promoters position hand mask and disinfectant.
Visits are non-contact. They ask families to place a chair or bench outdoors where they leave the boxes.
Sometimes citizens faint to communicate with them at their doorstep, while other times, developers make a call to see how citizens are doing and if there’s anything else they need.
They provide data on healthy hygiene practices, can talk about how to disinfect the house, how they do themselves when they leave the house, or offer main points of available monetary aid.
The purpose is to prevent the spread of the virus.
Guadalupe firefighters and the Pascua Yaqui tribe also distributed masks or food and cloth to families.
Molina sees the promotion program or as one of the reasons for the city’s figures.
The advent of testing some other key element on the network.
The city helps keep citizens informed about the pandemic through Facebook videos and data on their website.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Molina and Deputy Mayor Ricardo Vital, who are cousins, shared a video of themselves testing COVID-19 to inspire citizens to do the same.
Initially, there’s not much interest.
Many citizens felt uncomfortable reaching only 3 kilometers from a checkpoint on the rural roads and Guadeloupe in Tempe, Molina said.
The mayor knew she had to test them, so she contacted the U.S. representative, Rubén Gallego, who put her in touch with Valle Del Sol, a fitness firm that mainly serves the Latin American network.
Valle del Sol sponsored a two-day loose check bombardment in Guadeloupe in June and nearly 400 more people were monitored.
Since then, the city has partnered with other agencies to organize tests.
The Pascua Yaqui tribe employs about a hundred more people in Guadeloupe, who tested tribal workers and many tribal members of the city.
The tribe and several partners are recently conducting COVID-19 tests for the elderly and disabled at home, Vital, which works for the tribe.
The tribe is executing an agreement with the county for the tribe’s percentage tests and case knowledge to provide a more accurate picture of the impact of the virus, he said.
Almost part of the citizens of Guadeloupe are members of the Pascua Yaqui tribe and the other part identifies as Hispanic of Mexican descent.Many locals, such as Molina, identify with both.
Guadalupe was founded through Yaqui Indians who fled persecution in Sonora, Mexico, and settled in the Salt River Valley in the early 1900s.The Pascua Yaqui tribe has offices in Guadeloupe, its reserve is further south in the Tucson area.
Municipal and tribal governments estimate that between 1,000 and 1,500 more people have undergone COVID-19 testing since citizens began testing in June.
The purpose is for everyone at least once, Vital said.
Knowledge showed that minorities are at higher risk of getting sick or dying from COVID-19 because they are more likely to have underlying fitness problems, live in overcrowded conditions, paint in compulsory jobs with lower wages, and have less for health care.
According to Johns Hopkins University, limited to the Internet and the telephone, language barriers and mistrust in establishments can make it difficult to obtain reliable information.
In Arizona, Native Americans are among the population teams most affected by COVID-19..
Navajo Navajo, the hardest-hit nation, had the infection rate in the country in May, surpassing even some of the maximum postal codes affected in New York at the height of the pandemic.
When Guadeloupe officials won their first county report on June 1, he showed that the villagers tested positive at 5.6 times the county rate.Guadeloupe had one of the county’s infection rates.
Will Humble, former chief of the state’s fitness department, said many of the same points that helped make the Navajo Nation a hot spot have contributed to the increase in the number of cases in Guadeloupe.
The network of less than a mile is dotted with one-floor homes, many built before the 1980s and less than 1,200 feet.Many have several generations of families living together.
When a circle of five-person family members lives in a two- or three-bedroom home, it leaves little room for someone with health problems to separate, Molina said.
She knows it firsthand. Molina said she was forced to remain quarantined in her room for 3 days in April while waiting for the effects of a coVID-19 control moment after being exposed to the virus.
She had no symptoms, but she could threaten to expose her teenage son or her elderly parents who live with her.
Molina does all the shopping and takes the medications for her parents, who have only left home for medical appointments since March.Her siblings left her food and staples while she stayed in her room.
In the end, he claimed that its effects were negative.
Many citizens are hired in service-based jobs that would possibly put them at greater risk of coVID-19.The average source of household income in Guadeloupe is just under $32,300, or about part of the county’s average source of income.the population lives below the poverty line, according to census data.
Many citizens of Guadeloupe also have pre-existing fitness problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, which makes them more vulnerable to the virus, Vital said.
Guadeloupe has noticed 403 cases of COVID-19 reported as of September 2, the numbers are improving.
The social estinement required in the pandemic has not been easy on the united network where citizens like to gather and where hugs and kisses are deeply rooted customs.
From the beginning, leaders encouraged the faithful to reject warm hugs and handshakes in favor of nods and other friendly gestures, but customs are hard to break.
Molina said in April, at an assembly dedicated to Easter events, he told participants to take precautions and shake hands, but a wave of handshakes occurred at the end of the assembly.
The more than a month of Lent and Easter is regularly filled with culturally rich weekend processions in Guadeloupe.Ceremonies and blessings organized through members of the cultural societies of the Yaqui Easter tribe mix Yaqui spirituality and traditions.
These devoted ceremonies have been reduced this year, but others have joined, Molina said.
She is convinced that giant gatherings around Easter, Mother’s Day and graduation have stimulated the spread of the virus, despite state restrictions on giant gatherings and the suspension of the occasion allowing passage through the city.
However, attitudes are changing.
The concept of the virus remains a bit conceptual for many citizens in the last months of April and May.Today, many others have met or met someone who has experienced COVID-19 in the past, CEO Jeff Kulaga said.
People say he comes in combination in giant teams and takes on more non-public responsibilities.
“It’s real, ” he said. People learned that you could be 35 and that you’d be fine, but what about your aunt or older girl?
While some citizens were first and foremost ashamed to report that they had COVID-19 or to seek services, the city’s education and screening efforts helped normalize the virus, said Angelina Matuz, a member of the Yaqui Easter Tribal Council.
People who shared their struggles with the disease also helped.
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Matuz and several members of her rapid and prolonged circle of relatives contracted the virus in May, and her daughter, who had diabetes, was hospitalized for 3 days.
She tells her story in the hope that others will take the virus seriously and prove it to be a disgrace, she said.
“It’s not a bad thing or other people just understand.It can happen to anyone,” he says.
The number of new cases from week to week has decreased over the following month and no new cases were reported last week.The rate at which citizens tested positive has stabilized and remained approximately twice that of the county since beyond June, according to the weekly report the county continues to provide to the city.
Severe cases remain low and hospitalizations have not been reported in the past two weeks.Molina estimates that about 10 citizens of Guadeloupe and a handful of others with ties to the community, adding to EMT José Gómez, have died of COVID-19.
Officials say they will have to remain vigilant and continue to adhere to distance and masking protocols even in environments in Guadeloupe and throughout the state.
Molina fears that students returning to school will cause an increase in cases if they get the virus and bring it to their parents or grandparents.There are approximately 1,100 school-age youth who are transported by bus to 3 other districts near Tempe and Ahwatukee.
Even a poorly healthy child can help the virus “spread like gunpowder,” he says.
But he hopes the city is moving in the right direction and says he might not have done so without the support of the tribe, county and other partners.
“At first we were a little forgotten. Small towns and villages haven’t fought that hard,” he said, “but I think we’re catching up.”
Contact journalist Paulina Pineda at [email protected] or 480-389-9637, follow her on Twitter: ‘paulinapineda22’.
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