Harris said Redfield understood his concerns and is aware of the restrictions on the CDC, which has been largely ignored by the Trump administration during the pandemic.
Mecklenburg has increased its educational reach in recent weeks as more and more Latinos test positive, creating toolkits on how to send messages to Latino and black populations. They have also increased their presence on social media as younger Latinos become infected.
But county officials emphasized that even when they try to issue guidance, conflicting comments from the president and other federal officials have weakened their local response.
“There are multiple options for understanding the situation based on who you listen to and people will listen to who they want to listen to,” Harris said. “We are encountering that with contact tracking. We are encountering that with education; It does create challenges for us to really bring that science-based message home. “
North Carolina reached at least 2,000 new cases on Friday, and hospitalizations have remained above 1,000 since July 9. Latinos represent 42 percent of the state’s cases, but only 10 percent of the population.
Atlanta Area Debacle
In the worst cases, CDC’s tendency to parachute into communities has left residents confused and terrified.
In other cases, CDC teams stay so brief that they don’t learn much about a community, or may even divert attention from local pandemic response efforts, said Lori Freeman, executive director of the National Association of Civil Servants. County and City Health. And to be effective, she said, they cannot come and go. There needs to be cooperation and follow-up with the most affected communities.
When CDC lands without local collaboration, it’s even worse, Freeman said. “It reminds you of old television shows where people show up at the door and say, ‘We are with the FBI and we are here to help,’ and it never works out.”
That lack of collaboration was one reason the Georgia antibody study drove, sowing mistrust rather than partnership and progress.
CDC experts arrived for their week-long mission in DeKalb and Fulton counties on April 28, just a day after receiving final approval for their antibody project, which would help track how the virus was spreading. disproportionately among black residents. Sandra Elizabeth Ford, director of the DeKalb County Board of Health, said her office hardly noticed and had to struggle to do community outreach that the federal team was unable to do.
“We really tried to spread the word that this was not a police event and that it had no malicious intent,” he said.
Still, many residents were upset when CDC officials knocked on their doors.
“People asked me, ‘What do I do if they come to my door and ask for blood? Shall I give them to you? ‘”Said Nse Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project. “It scared many older adults and many African-American leaders and community members.”
A month later, at a virtual town hall organized by the Ufot organization, the CDC apologized.
“We clearly fell short of doing the appropriate outreach to the community before this happened,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, associate director of global health affairs for CDC’s influenza division.
“This was a critical error,” he said. “And we own it and we regret it and we have learned from it.”
In CDC’s analysis of the project released Tuesday, team members said they documented the racial disparities they were looking for, but the poor scope weakened their efforts.
“Active community participation from the survey design is an important component of building trust and potentially improving participation,” they wrote.
Even though CDC works to control infections among black and Latino communities, indigenous communities say they still feel invisible.
The CDC website says it has deployed personnel to support the Navajo Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Hopi Tribe, and two other tribes. He did one of his first audition sessions with the National Indian Health Board this month.
But in a place like Los Angeles, where the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives is scattered throughout the city, data collection on cases and hospitalizations is lacking.
Chrissie Castro, chair of the Los Angeles County and Native American Commission for Native Americans, said health workers have misidentified several members of the indigenous community as Hispanic.
“It is literally like a complete erasure of our experiences,” Castro said. “Our story is not coming out. I honestly don’t think we know what the real impacts are on our community. “
