Disparity of virus’s reach worrisome
Hot spots hitting Hispanics, service workers the hardest
“If you get sick, you can’t provide for your family. These employers have a responsibility to protect their employees.” State Sen. Victor Torres, whose district covers all of Osceola County
When Orange County leaders first began showing a heat map of the largest clusters of confirmed coronavirus cases, the 32822 ZIP code lit up bright red.
For Father José Rodríguez of Iglesia Episcopal Jesús de Nazaret, a church just north of the ZIP code that includes an area known as south Goldenrod, the map was a confirmation of what he already knew.
“Our prayer list is full of folks with symptoms who aren’t getting tested,” he said, noting that just under half of his congregation’s 100 households live in the 32822 ZIP code or just outside of it.
The ZIP code, which is 62% Hispanic, has a percapita income of about $19,000, well below the county median of about $30,000. A union that represents food service workers at Orlando International Airport said that ZIP code is where 260 of the people they represent live.
It tallied 62 cases of the virus on Friday evening, more than double the 25 cases recorded in the same area on March 31, when officials first began showing the heat maps. That’s higher
than any other ZIP code in Orange County. Five more cases were confirmed there between Thursday and Friday.
Residents and some elected officials are worried the largely Hispanic residents are more at risk because many people work in restaurants or other service industry jobs and aren’t able to stay home. There are also concerns that vital information put out by Orange officials isn’t being offered in Spanish and there isn’t enough access to testing.
Rodríguez of the local church posted an open letter to elected officials on Facebook pleading for more information in Spanish and a test site inside 32822’s boundaries.
“What’s really struck me is that with all the representation we have with elected officials, everything I’m seeing through official channels is in English,” he said. “I have yet to hear someone stand behind a microphone in real time and address the people in Spanish, Creole or in any of the languages that are within our elected officials.”
About one-third of Orange County’s population identifies as Hispanic. Raul Pino, the local officer for the state health department, and Yolanda Martinez, Orange’s health services director, address some reporters’ questions in both Spanish and English at regular county briefings.
But there isn’t real-time translation of the entire briefings led by Orange Mayor Jerry Demings and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. An American Sign Language interpreter translates the full briefings in real time for the hearing impaired. A county spokeswoman said a real-time translation method for the briefings will be tested as soon as next week. The county already posts a synopsis of the briefings on its Spanishlanguage web site.
Pino has said he wants to set up targeted testing in the county’s hot spots.
In neighboring Osceola County, where 55% of the total population is Hispanic, a Spanish translation was provided for every speaker at a briefing on Friday during which leaders announced a new order for all residents to wear masks in public. Osceola’s 34744 ZIP code, which is 57% Hispanic, leads the region in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases at 68 total.
Mayra Uribe, who represents
the 32822 ZIP code on the Orange County Commission, said she has appeared frequently on Spanish-language radio stations and sends out information to the community in Spanish, but remains concerned the message isn’t getting out.
“We have a lot of folks in that area who haven’t been tested and don’t know how,” Uribe said. “That’s the thing that really frightens me.”
She suspects the fast-paced news cycle that brings multiple updates each day may be moving too fast for people who work more than one job and don’t have
time to watch television or read the newspaper.
“Sure, they know there’s a coronavirus, but do they know how bad it is and to keep the 6-feet social distance? Not as much,” she said. “I’m hoping people are listening and I’m hoping people are being careful.”
It’s unclear what factors are contributing to hot spots. But there are similarities among some of the hardest-hit ZIP codes in the region.
Orlando Commissioner Tony Ortiz, whose district includes a sliver of the 32822 ZIP code, noted the area is in a central corridor, minutes away from Orlando International Airport, downtown Orlando and UCF. A busy commercial corridor on S.R. 436, also known as Semoran Boulevard, serves as the western border of the ZIP code.
“That’s why we rebranded it as Gateway Orlando, it’s not only the Gateway, but it’s the one centralized area,” Ortiz said. “We’ve also seen enormous growth on the east side.”
In driving around his district, Ortiz said he’s seen a number of people out shopping or running errands even after the county’s stay-at-home order took effect.
“But what really alarms me is people aren’t taking this seriously,” Ortiz said. “I see them walking around without masks and gloves on. This is a pandemic, and I see people walking around like nothing is going on.”
The demographics of the 32822 ZIP code mirrors the 34744 ZIP code in Kissimmee, which includes land east of the Florida Turnpike.
The ratios of infected people in the ZIP codes with the highest numbers of confirmed cases vary based on population.
In 34744, for example, there is one confirmed case for every 856 people. For 32822 in Orange County, there’s one confirmed case for every 944 people. Some other ZIP codes in the region have lower ratios, but fewer confirmed cases.
State Sen. Victor Torres, whose district covers all of Osceola
County, said the 34744 ZIP code includes a tourist-heavy stretch of U.S. 192, home to a number of service industry workers who keep hotels, resorts, restaurants and theme parks running.
Torres, who used to live in 32822 in Orange County, said many low-income people are still going into work because they can’t do agriculture, construction or grocery store jobs from home.
“If you get sick, you can’t provide for your family,” Torres said. “These employers have a responsibility to protect their employees.”
Quamaine Tisdale lives in 32822 in Orange and works at Orlando International Airport.
Tisdale, 20, is a supervisor at Chick-Fil-A and worries about germs he may bring home to his 67-year-old grandmother, who shares his apartment. He said she uses Lysol to wipe down the door handles and other surfaces he touches after work.
“I’m not sure what I could possibly be bringing home to my grandmother,” he said.
Jenniffer Deida, who lives in an apartment complex in the South Semoran neighborhood of 32822, said she doesn’t leave her home without a mask. The 39-year-old was furloughed two weeks ago from her job as a cook at On The Border at the airport and said she is struggling to pay for expensive asthma medication.
“It’s not easy to breathe all the time when you’re asthmatic. You get desperate for air, you have a feeling you’re not taking a deep breathe right, you get very anxious,” she said. “With this virus going around, I’m trying to be very careful and stay home.”
Deida and Tisdale said they weren’t surprised that their neighborhood is a hot spot for the virus because of its proximity to the airport. So far, 10 TSA workers have tested positive, though there’s no evidence the airport is connected to the cases in the 32822 ZIP, Pino said.
Like many airport employees, Tisdale parks off the property and takes a shuttle to the terminal before his shift.
“We don’t know who’s interacted with who. It’s kind of tense on the bus,” he said. “If one person coughs, everybody is looking at them.”