In late April, a coalition of medical, community and government organizations called Unidos en Salud tested nearly 3,000 people in one Mission District census tract for the new coronavirus. Sixty-two of them tested positive, slightly more than 2% of those tested. Among those testing positive, 95% identified as Hispanic or Latinx, though they made up only 44% of those tested.
More than half of the people who tested positive reported having no symptoms, and more than 80% said they were financially affected by the pandemic. Just one-tenth of them said they had been able to work from home.
Jon Jacobo is a member of the Latino Task Force on Covid-19 and chair of the UCSF Study Committee, groups that are part of the Unidos En Salud initiative. He said the disproportionate impact on Latinos is the result of longstanding inequities in the city and around the nation.
“Everybody will be impacted by this. Everybody is. People often say this virus knows no border, knows no color. True, but it hurts communities differently, especially those of color, because those communities have been treated differently and have been given a different set of circumstances.” — Jon Jacobo
A segment from our radio show, “Civic.” Listen daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on 102.5 FM in San Francisco.
