In a predominantly Latino community in the Bronx, New York, doctors who run the nonprofit SOMOS Community Care spent months leading the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, those same doctors go to other cities in the country that have noticed an increase in the number of new instances of COVID-19 to download loose evidence in communities of color, which have already been disproportionately affected by the virus and also face a shortage of evidence.
One such doctor is Dr. Jacqueline Delmont, MEDICAL Director of SOMOS, who has been running loose at a loose checkup site in Miami Lakes, Florida, for more than two weeks. The doctor, from Venezuela and committed to his career to help his fellow immigrants, said that “as soon as they arrived,” other people lined up at four in the morning to review.
The pandemic led Delmont to use all the skills he acquired in his career.
“This is an unprecedented moment. Array.. I can use my administrative skills, but my clinical skills, empathy coming from a circle of relatives with limited resources, understanding that there are definitely differences in communities in terms of access to information, medications, mobile devices, to adapt to the Internet,” he says.
Dr. Yomaris Pea, a SOMOS volunteer, said running on one of the organization’s verification sites is “another project in which I, my Hispanic family, my Latin Americans, my African-American family … all who are unattended.”
Medical experts said the controls were a key tool to prevent viral transmission of COVID-19. However, a review through ABC News and FiveThirtyEight of U.S. Census knowledge. And verification data in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that in many cities, controls in and around predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods likely served more patients than in predominantly white neighborhoods. The review also revealed disparities between the richest and poorest neighborhoods, with the checks being the rarest in the poorest.
He pointed to giant “particularly” disparities in testing in and around many cities, known as urbanized areas such as San Antonio, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Miami.
“It’s devastating that the communities that want it to the fullest, the communities that have been most affected, the communities where we have just had a greater effect on pandemic control, have not had access to the evidence,” Delmont said. Said.
She said it’s “very daunting” not being able to control many other people in those communities early because it doesn’t allow them to be proactive in isolating those who get sick. Because many other people in those communities live with their families, adding older people, this puts them at risk.
Natalie Choy, 16, recently won a COVID-19 check two weeks after her first positive result. She says her entire circle of relatives has become inflamed with the virus and hopes that by the time the verification gives her the go-ahead.
“My mother, my father, my little brother, then my two little brothers and sisters and my grandfather, all with me, and almost all have experienced symptoms besides babies,” Choy said.
She said it was less difficult to move socially from the house when only her father was in poor health, he was the first to test positive. Once another circle of family members contracted the virus, it has become more difficult. “I shared a room with my brother, so it wasn’t realistic at all. We couldn’t do anything unless we wore a mask. We’re still doing it.”
SOMOS check sites have also helped others who would not be able to access the service in a different way.
“People who can have cash and things just to be able to pay for each test have much less difficult access. Array… That’s good, but when it comes to five, six or seven people, some others may just not.”
Delmont noted that some families have barriers to receiving these services.
“Many patients have lost their insurance. They’re afraid to get a bill. Many of them are undocumented,” he said. “We perceive that the federal government necessarily covers that evidence for undocumented [immigrants].”
Carmen Guerra, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, specializes in fitness disparities. She says that for others who do not have insurance, “the only other features are relying on publicly funded detection, either through public fitness sites in the city or village, or through philanthropic funds.”
SOMOS is one of the organizations across the country that has been there to fill those gaps. In Houston, Sonia Gomez’s husband had been reluctant to get tested while his circle of family members was experiencing symptoms of the virus.
When they arrived at the soMOS site in Houston, she said her husband “was very pleased that they didn’t ask him for data on … prestige or roles.”
Gomez said he had driven 30 minutes to get to the verification site and that SOMOS doctors received them temporarily; said he had tried other options and that waiting 3 to 4 weeks “because the verification sites are very complete at this time. . “
A few days after receiving a test, Gomez tested the virus.
“It’s very shocking and scary to know that we all have positive test results and that it’s so dangerous. People are dying. It’s crazy,” he told ABC News.
SOMOS was founded in 2015 through Dr. Ramon Tallaj after immigrating to the United States from the Dominican Republic in the 1990s, and now has more than 2,500 doctors who can speak five languages with their patients.
“Our patients are immigrants like us,” he said. “We speak the same language. We know exactly what your challenge is in terms of housing, money, employment. Then we had to paint with them in each and every way we could.”
When the pandemic first spread through New York, the Bronx, the epicenter of the epicenter, and SOMOS there to help, the organization partnered with New York State to expand to 28 more sites. While the organization has expanded its efforts to other cities, Tallaj says SOMOS doctors have conducted approximately a quarter of a million tests.
“From the beginning, we cried to test in our community,” Tallaj said. “But we did it ourselves. We put a lot of money into play … and we will continue for our own people.
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