State’s new commitment to equity focuses Sonoma County’s COVID efforts

The stark racial differences in COVID infections and deaths have led the state of California to make a remarkable commitment to low-income and Latino Californians: counties cannot relax their restrictions while infection rates in their poorest neighborhoods exceed the countywide average. This “equity metric” is the reason Sonoma County can’t get out of the most restrictive purple tier. And it’s galvanizing long-overdue action from the County. 

“The state’s new equity metric gives local health officials a strong incentive to marshal their resources in the Latino community,” says a recent Press Democrat opinion. Many of these resources are flowing to southwest Santa Rosa, where larger populations make it easier to see the zipcodes and census tracts where poverty concentrates, but some is also flowing to the Springs and El Verano in Sonoma Valley, where there are at least 155 coronavirus cases.

Sustainable Sonoma shares this value, that equitable health and economic conditions are a precondition for a sustainable community. We applaud the state’s new equity metric, and Sonoma County’s CURA project that is channeling aid through trusted nonprofits serving the Latino community. Sustainable Sonoma member La Luz is a CURA partner.

Dr. Panna Lossy, quoted in the Press Democrat, said it best: “the county has too many low-wage earners with no choice but to work when they’re sick. And this same group of residents often lives in crowded housing with extended families because of the county’s high cost of living.”