Mayor routes aid to Latinos
Group seeing higher rate of virus infections
Mayor Martin Walsh is focusing COVID-19 efforts on Boston’s Hispanic community, which he says is seeing disproportionate infection numbers during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Right now and in recent weeks we are seeing higher than average positive rates in the Latino community,” Walsh said at a press conference on Thursday. “Latino residents make up 20% of the population here in the city of Boston, but they are 28% of our city’s overall COVID cases.”
Walsh said the city is shifting $400,000 to nonprofits that work with Latinos, such as the Greater Boston Latino Network, the Whittier Street Health Center and the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center.
The mayor said this is meant to expand testing and messaging around the virus to Spanishspeaking communities.
The Rev. Sam Acevedo, a Roxbury preacher who’s a member of the Greater Boston Latino Network, said, “Virtually since its launch, the Latino members of Boston’s Health Inequities Task Force have noticed that the data being captured by the state and city did not match what we were seeing firsthand.”
He said many Latinos had symptoms, but didn’t get tested because they were worried about their own or their family’s immigration status.
“Recent data is beginning to demonstrate what we knew on the ground — Latino COVID-19 cases unfortunately are on the rise in Boston, and especially for the 21 to 39 age group,” Acevedo said. He said the groups will put out more bilingual messaging about the need to wear a mask and other COVID-19 measures.
Walsh in the press conference also urged everyone to get tested as often as they felt they should.
His health chief Marty Martinez said, “We want people to access testing across the city — and that includes whether you are symptomatic or not.”
This comes as the city is in the first week of “Phase 3” of its reopening from coronavirus shutdowns.
Starting this past Monday, movie theaters, museums and gyms were allowed to open back up with restrictions.
In Boston, 13,793 people have tested positive for the virus, 9,837 have recovered and 716 have died, according to the Boston Public Health Commission.
Walsh and Police Commissioner William Gross both spoke about the recent uptick in shootings in Boston, referring to the “brutal, cold-blooded act of violence” in which someone shot a convenience store clerk in Roxbury.
“Someone committing a crime like this makes a choice — the choice to inflict pain and suffering on a fellow human being,” Walsh said. “I asked that night for the people committing the crime and the violence to stop. I’m telling you today to stop.”