Omicron arrives to a battered Latino community. ‘We can’t take another hit.’ | Calavia-Robertson – NJ.com
I was just starting to think we were turning a corner on the pandemic when the new COVID variant Omicron decided to crash the holidays and make its unwelcome debut. My first thought was about people in communities of color, the people I’ve been writing about since the early days of the virus.
They’ve already been so devastated by the health crisis, and many are still unvaccinated — 55% of Latinos and 50% of Black people across 43 states, which means a new threat is nothing to brush off.
One of the hardest-hit communities are young Hispanic men in New Jersey who died at four and a half times the rate of Hispanic women, twice the rate of young Black men and seven times the rate of young white men, according to an analysis of confirmed deaths by WNYC/Gothamist.
“It’s important to dispel the idea that the risk of infection and death is only real for older people,” said Stephanie Silvera, an epidemiologist who teaches public health at Montclair State University. “We know that’s not true, specifically here in New Jersey, where we saw men in the Latinx community dying at much younger ages.”
A 44-year-old husband and father from Elizabeth. A 39-year-old husband and father from Plainfield. A 32-year-old husband and father from Orange. 44. 39. 32! Strong, hardworking, young men in the prime of their lives.
For community activist Carmen Salavarrieta, cofounder of Plainfield-based nonprofit Angels for Action Inc., tending to the grieving has been heartbreaking.
For more than a year, her organization has provided food and other necessities to families whose patriarchs have died of COVID. She’s shared community resources with them, pointed them in the direction of doctors and clinics, and advised all who will listen to get the vaccine.
“There’s so many stories and they will shatter you,” she said in Spanish. “I helped a young woman, with two small children… her husband worked in construction. He wasn’t even 40 yet. But he got COVID and just like that, he was gone. Now, it’s just her and the kids and it shouldn’t be.”
She said she often drops off food at the woman’s house and tries to help her any way she can because “she’s very affected” and said she stays in touch with many of the over 100 families she provides meals to on a weekly basis.
Some losses have hit closer to home: one of Salavarrieta’s cousin’s sons, who was 25 years old and a twin, died of COVID a few months ago.
“Now, the family is incomplete,” she said. “His brother’s incomplete. He’s constantly talking about him, missing him. How do you recover from that? We’ve lost so much. I just keep thinking that as a community, ‘we can’t take another hit.’”
Maria Rodriguez, pictured here with her son Jimmy Menjivar Rodriguez, and her husband Jose Menjivar said when Menjivar died of COVID-19 two months ago, she lost the love of her life and the backbone of her family.
Dr. Frank Dos Santos, chief medical officer at Clara Maass Medical Center, said culturally Latino men have strong “family first” mentalities, often putting the needs of spouses and children before their own.
“They take pride in providing for their families, usually working two or more jobs,” said the doctor, whose mother is from Guatemala. “And with that comes putting their health aside, delaying care.” Dos Santos said even before the pandemic, many Latino men were walking around completely unaware of their medical conditions.
“So, when we’re diagnosing them with COVID, we’re also diagnosing them with …’oh, by the way, did you know you have high blood pressure?’ or ‘by the way, did you know that you’re a Type 2 diabetic?’ or ‘have a heart disease?’” And with what we know about COVID, these co-morbidities raise the risk of a severe bout of the illness.
Latinos, Dos Santos said, also have “an issue of trust when it comes to the vaccine” but said he and others at Maass’ Center of Excellence for Latino Health have been working to help them overcome it. He’s done informational webinars and gone out to communities in Newark and elsewhere to vaccinate people at elementary schools, churches and even on city streets. Some people, he said, have told him they were “unsure” and had “waited” to get the shot.
“The message right now needs to be very clear: the vaccines we have are effective,” he said. Pfizer and BioNTech on Wednesday issued a statement saying that a preliminary lab study shows it takes three doses of its vaccine to “neutralize” the fast-spreading Omicron.
Even so, Silvera, the epidemiologist, said discussions about COVID and communities of color should not be centered wholly on vaccination. Vaccination, is of course, highly important, she said, but “we need to look at the whole picture.”
“There’s a tendency to talk about [preexisting conditions like] diabetes and obesity as behavioral choices and say ‘it’s your fault. you should’ve eaten better. you should’ve exercised more,’ without looking at the structural inequalities that limit the options of many people of color and lead to poor health,” she said.
“Redlining, housing discrimination, fewer economic opportunities, public-facing jobs in the food service and transportation industries, living paycheck to paycheck, without sick days, lack of [health] insurance… that’s all part of the equation, putting some Latinos at higher risk for infection and death.”
Silvera’s right. More has to be done to address the underlying inequities that got us here. The virus taking the lives of Latinos young and old, decimating our communities and leaving unfillable voids in the hearts of our familias.
Regardless of what is done now for some, it’s too late. Plainfield resident Maria Rodriguez lost “the love of her life,” her husband of nearly 30 years, Jose Menjivar, two months ago. Both were born in El Salvador and lived in New Jersey for more than two decades. Here, they shared a home and raised three children.
After a two-week bout with COVID-19 that destroyed his lungs and his kidneys, Plainfield resident Jose Menjivar, a father and grandfather, died. His widow said he did not have health insurance and had not gone to the doctor in three years.
Menjivar, was 65 when after two weeks with COVID, he succumbed to the disease. He worked in a thrift store warehouse and drove a truck and did not have health insurance. Without health insurance, he didn’t go to the doctor for the past three years.
According to New Jersey Policy Perspective, a think tank in Trenton, Latino residents surveyed in the midst of the pandemic were three times more likely than white residents to report not having health insurance. And though the 2010 Affordable Care Act helped close the gap on insurance disparities, state data for people under 65 show Latino communities still fall behind — only 82% of Latinos are insured compared to 95% of white residents and 91% of Black people.
Rodriguez who described her husband as her “support in every way” and “the backbone of our family” said when her husband was really sick he told her that as soon as he recovered, he’d go get the vaccine.
”He never got the chance,” she said in Spanish, her voice breaking. “Now, all I have are hospital bills, debts, and sadness.”
Daysi Calavia-Robertson may be reached at dcalavia-robertson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Instagram at @presspassdaysi or Twitter @presspassdaysi.
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