Latino nonprofits look to form COVID-19 Latino Alliance
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — In an effort to slow COVID-19’s impact in the Hispanic community, several organizations are working to form a Latino alliance.
Supporters say Hispanics now have the highest infection rates in Marion County. Representatives said although Latinos make up 12% of the county’s population, they account for 15% of COVID-19 infections. While they applaud the Marion County Public Health Department’s improvements in tracking cases, officials are calling for more to be done to help slow the spread.
COVID-19 isn’t letting up, and it’s the Latino community that may now be getting hit the hardest. Twenty Latino residents serving nonprofits are coming together to form the Latino Alliance. It’s focus will be on slowing COVID-19’s spread.
“We realize Latinos were disproportionately impacted and we wanted to come together and do something about that,” said Yecenia Tostado, the executive director for Project Azul.
Tostado and representatives from La Plaza came up with the idea.
“So we do know that Latinos many times are our front-line workers. So we need to make sure that, if they’ve been exposed, they have access to testing and also have the proper support to be able to stay home if they are impacted.”
The Marion County Public Health Department has been tracking COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started. In August, the department started releasing racial ethnic data. Tostado said, based on data collected, out of every 100,000 people, more than 2,500 Latinos are infected.
“We want to make sure that the solutions that are implemented create long-term solutions for our community,” Tostado said. ” These organizations came together to elevate this message to say that we recognize that there are disparities in our community and we want to work with the city and the county to work toward sustainable solutions.”
To help curb those disparities, representatives have come up with a few recommendations to protect the Latino community. Some of them include creating an outreach campaign in Spanish, improving access to COVID-19 information in Spanish, not requiring IDs at county COVID-19 testing sites, and reallocating CARES Act funding.