In response to an exclusive analysis of Santa Clara County death records showing that Latinos in San Jose were dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates, Latino leaders are calling on the city to take stronger steps to protect its Latino residents.
“However we move forward as a city, we must address trends like this,” Councilmember Maya Esparza said during a council meeting this week. “It should not be acceptable to anyone at the city or anywhere else that trends like this exist and we see correlations to other needs, such as food.”
Records from the county medical examiner released over the weekend by this news organization showed that more than a third of the first 100 people who died of COVID-19 deaths in the county lived in just four ZIP codes on the east side and parts of central San Jose. Latinos have been hit particularly hard by the disease, dying at rates disproportionately greater to their percentage of the population and at younger ages than white and Asian-Americans, according to an analysis of the medical examiner records and public health data.
Latinos account for 34 percent of those who have died from the disease in Santa Clara County as of May 9 yet comprise just 23 percent of the county’s 18-and-older population.
At a council meeting this week, the five Latino members on San Jose’s City Council — Raul Peralez, Sergio Jimenez, Magdalena Carrasco, Maya Esparza and Sylvia Arenas — all pressed city officials on the newly released findings. One council member even called out their other colleagues’ lack of response.
“I’m really disappointed that only the folks who are Latinos on council are up in arms about this,” Arenas said. “I’d like to see some camaraderie here — not just because I’m Latino and of Mexican descent, but because these are people that are dying in our city, under our watch.”
Arenas, who also expressed frustration that she learned about the death analysis from a newspaper article and not from city officials, urged staff to acquire such data on an ongoing basis and prioritize testing and contract tracing in San Jose’s east side.
“This is the reason why we’re serving, is to change policies and to make sure we save lives, especially during this crisis,” she said.
A COVID-19 data dashboard on the county’s public health website breaks down the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases by geography and race but does not yet provide the same publicly available data for deaths.
In response to the pushback from council members, City Manager David Sykes said it would not be “humanly possible” for city officials to ask for any more information than they have been since the public health crisis first began.
“We’ve been pressing and working with the county on all fronts,” Sykes said. “We could not be pressing any harder than we are currently.”
Earlier this month, two new coronavirus testing sites opened in East San Jose — one at James Lick High School and another at the PAL Stadium in East San Jose. But, as councilwoman Carrasco noted, people need internet access to secure a time slot at the PAL site and neither site has reached its daily capacity.
During the first eight days of operation at the PAL site, an average of about 140 tests were conducted each day — significantly less than the daily capacity of 250, according to city data.
“We have a hotbed and we have all of the prime elements on the East Side to make sure that COVID-19 is alive and well,” Carrasco said, citing overcrowded living conditions and low-income wage earners who are still going to work to support their families.
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“So, if we know that and we have known that, then why are we not doing everything and anything we can within our power to test individuals so that we can either isolate them or keep them away from work as quickly as humanly possible?”
San Jose Deputy City Manager Kip Harkness said the city is trying to scale up its publicity efforts to raise awareness about the new testing sites and is exploring a model deployed in Oakland that allows residents to be tested on a walk-up basis without a pre-scheduled appointment.
Toward the end of the council discussion, Mayor Sam Liccardo noted that “geography is not completely destiny” for who is affected by the pandemic. “We have needs in lots of parts of our city and it comes in different ZIP codes, and we do need to be astute to that as well,” he said.
In an interview after the meeting, the mayor called it “brutally unfair and sad” that impoverished and minority members of the community were “bearing the brunt of the public health crisis.”
But, he added, “I don’t know there is any aspect of our response that hasn’t overwhelmingly focused on the needs of those who are most imperiled by this pandemic,” pointing to the city’s efforts to increase food distribution to low-income residents and adding hundreds of shelter beds for the city’s homeless residents.
Reporters David DeBolt and Leo Castaneda contributed to this story.
