In L.A. County, Covid Is Hitting Black and Latino Residents Hardest

Life, death and grief in Los Angeles

Photographs by Meridith Kohut

Text by Fernanda Santos

With a population of more than 10 million, Los Angeles County is the most populous county in the United States. It's a world of extremes, with multi-million dollar mansions on one end and cramped apartments on the other end, home to generations of the same family. When the coronavirus tightened its impact on the region again late last fall, it hit the county's poorest and neediest residents with the utmost precision: elderly blacks in southern Los Angeles, islanders in the Pacific in Inglewood, and Latinos in key jobs in the struggling all over town in the dark. In the Boyle Heights neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles, where half of all residents live in poverty, the number of coronavirus infections in a 14-day period was six times higher than in Bel Air, one of Los Angeles' richest neighborhoods .

The holidays sparked the boom, and through January 11, an average of 10 residents in the county tested positive for coronavirus every minute. One person died every eight minutes. Hospitals were overwhelmed; Ambulances circled for hours, trying to find emergency rooms that could take another patient. That month, Barbara Ferrer, the county’s health director, called it "the worst disaster our county has seen in decades". But it was unequal.

By mid-February, the virus had killed black residents almost twice as often and Latinos almost three times as often as white Angelenos. Not only had it exposed a sharp racial and ethnic divide, but longstanding neglect of people cleaning houses, caring for the elderly and the disabled, sorting and delivering packages, and preparing, cooking and serving the food we eat . "This is a public policy enigma and a system failure on a whole different level because of its economic and health consequences," said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at the University of California at Los Angeles. “Ultimately, we failed to react and stop the bleeding because we made decisions that either deliberately or because of lack of understanding have excluded precisely those groups of the population who are vital to the functioning of the state and who also need our most help . "

Paramedics resuscitating a cardiac arrest man who was likely to have Covid-19.

Victor Lopez, 34, was rushed to the hospital where he tested positive for Covid-19 pneumonia. He died on February 14, making him the fourth person in his family to succumb to the virus.

Huntington Park is one of the gateway cities in southeast Los Angeles County, a collection of black, brown, and Asian communities that embody the one-sided devastation of the pandemic. It is the 14th most densely populated city in the country with a population of 61,348 in an area of ​​three square miles. The area is divided by the 710 freeway, a congested transportation corridor for goods dumped in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the busiest container terminals in America. The air is dense with pollution. The streets are full of meat packers, warehouses, factories and distribution centers.

Many residents are undocumented and have been automatically excluded from much of the federal relief efforts. (The aid package approved by Congress in December provided benefits for children and spouses in mixed-status families, although children with two undocumented parents were still not qualified. President Biden's proposed $ 1.9 trillion package could provide benefits Eleni Pappas, assistant fire chief for the Los Angeles District Fire Department that serves the area, said paramedics had three times as many medical calls a day in Huntington Park and the surrounding communities in the past few months Pappas said they are being called by residents who are "hardworking people unable to stay and work from home" who "need a paycheck every two weeks to make ends meet." come "and who by tradition, necessity or both, have" grandmothers and aunts and uncles and everyone who lives together, to share costs and support each other. "

Cipriano Estrada most likely brought the coronavirus home from a clothing factory in South Central Los Angeles, where he spent hours sewing buttons on clothes. Estrada lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Huntington Park with five other family members, and the virus soon spread to his wife Ofelia González, as well as a granddaughter and other relative. Estrada, 58, most likely knew about the dangers of working in the factory, but the necessity outweighed the risk, as is often the case with people on the edge. Black and Latino Angelenos are overrepresented among key workers and have been disproportionately influenced by the rocking pattern of recovery as the companies they employ have closed, reopened and closed again. "What that means is a lot of economic desperation," said Manuel Pastor, professor of sociology and director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. "People could then be willing to take jobs that would be risky because they haven't worked, or because they have to stand in line for food, or because they run the risk of losing their homes, because they & # 39; 39; I can't get rent. "

The youngest daughter of Estrada and González, 34-year-old Violeta Estrada, took time out from her job as a supervisor in a school cafeteria to look after her family as well as possible. She gave them a sip of electrolyte to prevent dehydration and wrapped them in blankets when they shivered. Three masks, a face shield and disposable gloves were their only protection.

On February 10, medics took González, weak and breathless, to a nearby community hospital. She was nothing like the "hardworking little lady who never gives up", as Violeta described her, the woman who "always helped without asking for a favor". Estrada joined González on February 12; The husband and wife ended up in the same hospital room and fought for their lives.

Days later, Violeta said in a text message: "I will remain strong and with a lot of confidence that my parents will heal and will soon come out of the hospital with God's will." Only her father had returned home at the end of February, and the fear of the unknown was very real. Her mother was still in the hospital with extra oxygen.

Black and brown patients regularly filled the beds in the Covid-19 ward at the LAC + USC Medical Center. It is one of four hospitals and 26 health centers operated by the county and one of the largest public hospitals in the United States. Doctors and nurses trained by the chaos of the first onslaught last spring are doing every conceivable help here. In some cases, life is extended just enough for relatives to witness the last moments of a loved one. These relatives usually appear as faces on a screen. If they're lucky, they can be there in person.

María Salinas Cruz leaned her hands against the glass door of her husband's hospital room on Jan. 28 when a respiratory therapist disconnected the ventilator that was keeping Felipe Cruz alive. "Don't be afraid, Felipe," she said in Spanish as he was dying. "Be brave, my dear, brave until the last moment." Felipe Cruz worked as an air conditioning technician for most of his adult life, cleaning and repairing commercial and residential systems. His family is convinced that this is how the coronavirus found him. He eventually infected his wife and their three daughters, Maritza, 22; Esmeralda, 15; and Brisa, 14.

Cruz had no health insurance or retirement plans. His only choice to house and feed his girls was to keep working. "During the whole pandemic he worked as usual, for which we were honestly grateful, because the bills don't stop, the rent doesn't stop," said Maritza. He was admitted to the medical center on January 1, his 48th birthday, and held on to life for 27 days to progress until suddenly he was no longer.

María Salinas Cruz watched her husband's ventilator shut off.

The final moments in Felipe Cruz's life. He was 48 and had been in intensive care for 22 days.

In a nearby hospital room, Gabino Tlaxcala, 74, was holding on tightly when he looked at a doctor and initially told her that he did not want to be intubated if his lungs stopped working. "Que sea lo que Dios diga," he said afterwards. Whatever God says. Tlaxcala sounded exhausted, and his voice barely rose above the surge of oxygen that was flowing into his body. He'd been cleaning a Beverly Hills hotel for 18 years while caring for his wife and raising their nine children. He died on January 30th. What would become of his family now? What would Cruz's family become?

Gabino Tlaxcala, 74, discusses his care plan with a doctor. He died on January 30th.

Although the number of new infections and deaths has decreased in recent weeks, the pandemic has profoundly affected Latinos in Los Angeles County. They have been hit by high unemployment rates in the hotel and leisure industries, where many of them work. They are among those who have received the lowest number of vaccines despite the staggering infection rates in their communities. According to a study published in February in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, their life expectancy decreased three to four times as much as that of white residents over the past year. The state has taken a step to address these disparities, revealing the Health Justice Metric, a set of reopening standards that would require counties to bridge the gap in coronavirus positivity rates between the wealthiest and disadvantaged enclaves. "Covid-19 is a one-time pandemic," said Diaz of the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative. “But it's not forest fires and natural disasters, not income inequality, not housing insecurity. How can we invest now if these vulnerable communities not only survive Covid-19 but thrive in recovery too? "

Even at the height of the surge, when the number of coronavirus cases was multiplying exponentially around him, Cruz, the air conditioning technician, never brought up the possibility of not going to work. He knew his family needed him. "For us," said Maritza, "it was absolutely necessary that he keep working." Weeks passed and he held onto hope – the hope that the pandemic would not last. But that is meaningless now, meaningless to many families like his, because the end of the pandemic would not bring back those who lost them. "There are many daughters waiting for fathers who will not return, many women waiting for husbands who will not return," his wife said. She is one of them.