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While some cities continue to party like its 1999 some areas are still fighting for their lives against COVID-19. One area is being slowly decimated.
As spotted on Raw Story(via the Miami Herald), the city of Miami is seemingly losing the battle against the pandemic. According to the report, there is a huge race gap when it comes to confirmed cases that the data is showing but fails to make national headlines on major media outlets. In the last couple of weeks several Haitians have succumbed to the disease, at the time of this story there 100+ documented deaths stemming from Coronavirus.
“The stigma is huge,” said South Florida Dr. Sidney Coupet. “A patient who I treated in the hospital, they discharged her. She beat COVID. The way she was speaking to me, it was as if she was embarrassed. They’re afraid their families and friends would never come visit them again.” Coupet overseas a health task force within the Haitian American Coalition of South Florida which specializes in bringing awareness within those areas with high concentration of Haitians. Ironically the first death in that area was a Haitian-American a 94-year-old woman named Dieumene Etienne.
As shown in the newest findings Haitians make up 5% of COVID-19 victims in Miami-Dade County since August. But when you dig deeper into how the numbers are being collected the impact to the Haitian community could be far greater. Florida state is not tracking infections by ethnicity; only Hispanics. Thus it is difficult to exactly pinpoint how exposed this specific group is to the virus. “It’s impacted the Haitian community more than people realize,” said Pauline Louis-Magiste, president of the Haitian American Nurses Association of Florida. “Unfortunately, the data collection doesn’t really give you the statistical number on how Haitian Americans are being impacted.”
The city continues to conduct outreach but North Miami Vice Mayor Alix Desulme is now requesting more of the messaging be done in Creole. Let’s hope the action plan works.
Photo: Getty
