Dr. Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, is calling on the citys major hospitals to break down the barriers for providing coronavirus testing.

During a City Council virtual hearing on the racial and ableist disparities of COVID-19, she suggested that all Philadelphia hospitals that received millions of dollars in CARES Act funding should open their doors from 9 a.m. to midnight to make it more convenient for residents to be tested.

"The hours are 9 to 5," Stanford said. "There are no hours on the weekends. How are people supposed to get tested?"

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Stanford also said making people show identification or obtain physician referrals can keep people from getting tested.

People retreat and recoil when they hear that, she said. Its like asking them to sign something thats 20 pages long with a vocabulary that they may not understand. The reality is you need a persons name, you need a date of birth and you need a way to contact them. When we test people on the street at Broad and Olney or at 52nd and Market, those were the only three pieces of information that we needed.

The hearing was held by the Council Committee on People with Disabilities and Special Needs, chaired by Councilman Derek Green and the Committee on Public Health and Human Services, chaired by Councilwoman Cindy Bass.

Too many of our citizens have been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic, not only from a public health perspective but also from an economic perspective, Green said.

That experience is not only in the African-American community, but also in the Latin community as well as the disability community. All of these communities were having major challenges in reference to public health before COVID-19. What COVID-19 has done has only illuminated the disparities that many people in our city are dealing with every day.

We as elected officials, as members of the executive branch, of the general public, those who are leaders in our community, need to do what needs to be done to address this issue, he continued.

Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Tom Farley said current city data shows marked disparities of the coronavirus impact by race and ethnicity.

As of last weekend, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health reported 846 COVID-19 deaths in African Americans, 461 deaths in whites, 146 deaths in Hispanics and 49 deaths in Asian Americans.

COVID-19 seems to following a pattern of other health problems, Farley said.

African Americans have higher mortality rates than whites for a wide range of diseases and injuries from heart diseases to diabetes to homicides. These disparities are one result of structural racism in our society that reaches back across generations.

The exact mechanisms by which this legacy affects COVID are not fully clea, but we can speculate about. People of color are more likely to work remotely and are more likely to be front-line workers and risk their exposure to the virus, he said.

The legacy of redlining in our city means that Black and Latino city residents are more likely to live in crowded housing, where they are unable to safely quarantine or to isolate if sick.

Farley highlighted the Public Health Departments new COVID-19 Racial Equity Response Plan.

Racial disparities of COVID-19 infection are representative of deep-seated problems so they will not be eliminated easily or quickly, nonetheless we will take the steps in our plan to reduce deaths and continue to look for additional opportunities to solve this problem, he said.

The plan includes increasing access to COVID-19 testing, tracking racial and ethnic disparities, conducting community outreach, preventing chronic health conditions, protecting essential workers, preventing spread in congregate settings such as nursing homes, shelters and prisons and a new contact tracing program.

Weve worked with partners across the city to expand testing access with an intentional focus on Black and Latino neighborhoods, Farley said. There is more to be done but we have made significant progress.

One of those partners is the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, which city officials have promised to pay $1.3 million to test Black residents over the next six months.

The consortium has tested 8,000 people in Philadelphia since April, through partnerships with local Black religious institutions.

I formed the organization because Black people in Philadelphia were being diagnosed and dying at a rate higher than any other group and there was not a concerted effort to decrease that death and disease on April 16 when we started, Stanford said.

As of last week, the number of Philadelphia residents tested for coronavirus jumped from 1,500 per day to more than 3,000, Farley said.

Of the people tested so far, for whom we have race and ethnic information, 54% of those tested were African American, 27% were white and 9% were Latino, he said.

During the hearing, Koert Wehberg, executive director of the Mayors Commission on People with Disabilities, underscored how COVID-19 has impacted people who are disabled.

When COVID hit, many people with disabilities were in congregate care facilities, nursing homes, group homes, personal care homes (and) correctional facilities and unfortunately over half of the people who succumbed to COVID had an underlying health condition or disability, he said.

Abrupt changes in routines have resulted in people with intellectual developmental disabilities having increased behavioral issues and issues with home care. Weve heard heart heartbreaking stories from folks who are afraid or unable to leave their homes, since this all started, as a result as their change of routine and difficulty in obtaining PPE (personal protective equipment) for themselves of their home care workers.

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City Council hearing highlights impact racial and ableist disparities of COVID-19 - The Philadelphia Tribune