The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately impact Black and Indigenous communities, as well as other people of color, including Hispanic and Asian populations. This is prompting the state to now take focused measures to help out these communities, nine months into the global pandemic.
Tina Dortch, program manager of the Nevada Office of Minority Health and Equity (NOMHE), joined Nevada Health Response officials for Monday’s COVID-19 update to let Nevadans know how the state is preparing to help distressed communities of color.
According to Dortch, the NOMHE is in the final stages of developing a COVID response tool kit, which aims to “educate, equip and maximize service delivery capacity of persons or entities focused on addressing health-related needs across vulnerable communities.”
A report by the Guinn Center analyzed some of the reasons communities of color are more vulnerable than white Nevadans. Reasons include pre-existing conditions, such as heart disease and obesity caused by poor diet, absence of dedicated healthcare providers and increased exposure to the virus as a large number of members of these communities work in frontline industries.
Many people in vulnerable communities don’t have any health insurance.
The toolkit will be ready by later this month. Its goal is “to bolster inefficient, ineffective and in some cases unattempted approaches that leave marginalized communities underserved.”
The content is divided into four categories: cultural literacy strategies; outreach and public awareness strategies; contact tracing and emergency response strategies; and action planning and reporting strategies, said Dortch.
Some content will be available in culturally appropriate and adaptive formats when possible. The toolkit may be customized according to the need of organizations on request, Dortch added.
Washoe County update
On a 14-day rolling average, 13 people have died every day and 2,319 people have died from COVID-19 in Nevada to date. There have been 59 deaths in Washoe County in the past two weeks.
Nevada Health Response Director Caleb Cage said that all counties, with the exception of Storey County, remain flagged for elevated disease transmission.
- As of today, Nevada has logged 170,587 cases, an increase of 2,448 new cases since yesterday.
- The state has completed a total of 1,747,116 molecular tests since the beginning of COVID-19.
- For the most recent seven-day period, cases are growing at a rate of 1.6% or 2,631 new cases per day.
- The test positivity rate over the last 14 days is 21.2% — the highest 14- day test positivity rate since the start of the pandemic in Nevada.
There are 1,767 COVID-19 hospitalizations–1,617 confirmed and 150 suspected–in Washoe County. The Nevada Hospital Association reported that hospitalizations for COVID-19 are increasing and likely to continue the trend. Also, demands for ventilation and intensive care are rising.
