{"id":20094,"date":"2022-01-20T11:27:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T16:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=20094"},"modified":"2022-01-20T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T16:36:30","slug":"cronkite-news-pascua-yaqui-tribe-helps-address-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2022\/01\/20\/cronkite-news-pascua-yaqui-tribe-helps-address-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Cronkite News: Pascua Yaqui Tribe helps address high COVID-19 rates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\n\t\t\tDoor-to-door campaign helps Guadalupe turn the tide against COVID | Cronkite News\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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With the help of Town Council members, tribal leaders, and health care organizations, tiny Guadalupe is driving down COVID-19 cases.(Video by Miles Green\/Cro…<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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Cronkite News Video by Miles Green: Door-to-door campaign helps Guadalupe turn the tide against COVID<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Door-to-door campaign helps Guadalupe turn the tide against COVID<\/div>\r\n
Thursday, January 20, 2022<\/div>\r\n
By Miguel Torres<\/div>\r\n
Cronkite News<\/DIV>\r\n
cronkitenews.azpbs.org<\/A><\/DIV>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nGUADALUPE, Arizona — A mix of stigma, misinformation and bad accounting let COVID-19 run rampant through this small town in 2020. But the community stepped back from that brink by building partnerships and fostering trust to track cases and increase vaccinations.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nIn spring 2020, every town in the country was trying to figure out how to best deal with the rise of what would become an indefinite global pandemic.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nBy early summer, Guadalupe had become a hotspot \u2013 with an infection rate 4.6 times higher<\/a> than that of surrounding Maricopa County, or 1,659 vs. 358 per 100,000 persons, according to a town report<\/a>. Guadalupe, wedged between Tempe and Interstate 10, is home to 6,500 mostly Hispanic residents along with members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cFor how small our community is, it was really bad. We were having funerals left and right,\u201d Vice Mayor Ricardo Vital told Cronkite News.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n \"Guadelupe,<\/a>

A mural on the side of El Mercado in tiny Guadalupe, which is home to 6,500 mostly Hispanic residents, many of them members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. Once hit hard by COVID-19, the community recovered by promoting masks and vaccinations. Photo by Kevin Hurley<\/a> \/ Cronkite News <\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nWhen the pandemic was declared in March 2020, the only data Guadalupe could use to gauge COVID-19 cases came from the Arizona Department of Health Services. But because the town shares a ZIP code with Tempe, Vital said, a lot of those cases were misassigned to the city.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nLeaders soon realized that the number of cases and deaths reflected in the state data didn\u2019t match what residents were talking about anecdotally.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThrough wastewater testing, conducted by Arizona State University researchers, leaders confirmed that COVID-19 was crushing their town. Maricopa County officials determined that Guadalupe needed help.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThe Town Council partnered with Pascua Yaqui tribal leaders, Maricopa County, Native Health and a COVID-19 response team composed of ASU faculty, staff and students to curb the numbers with at-home testing, contact tracing and, eventually, vaccination events.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n \"Guadalupe,<\/a>

A patient gets a COVID-19 vaccine at a recent event in Guadalupe. Fighting myths and misinformation about the vaccines has been a key part of outreach efforts. Photo by Kevin Hurley<\/a> \/ Cronkite News <\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nBy early December 2021, case rates in the town<\/a> were 196.05 per 100,000 people versus 300 per every 100,000 people countywide, but the new, fast-spreading omicron variant left officials worried.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen any large spikes, but there is that concern now with this new variant and again the spikes that occur due to holiday and social gatherings,\u201d Town Manager Jeff Kulaga said at a Dec. 9 town council meeting. \u201cSo the message is: Stay the same. We\u2019ve been in this going on over 18 months plus now. Masks are still important. Social distancing, still important. \u2026 And most important is the vaccinations and the booster shots.\u201d\r\n

<\/P>\r\nIn the early stages of the pandemic, Vital said, people were afraid to have anything to do with testing because they didn\u2019t want to be seen as someone exposed to COVID-19.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cWithin our own community, it was viewed as something shameful and something dirty to catch,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody wanted to be the first family in Guadalupe to be like, \u2018We have COVID.\u2019\u201d\r\n

<\/P>\r\n \"Veronica<\/a>

Veronica Perez is a promotora who lives in Guadalupe and went door-to-door during the pandemic to deliver goods and promote testing and vaccinations. \u201cWe would attend any public function that we could, and we would just educate the people,\u201d Perez says. Photo by Kevin Hurley<\/a> \/ Cronkite News <\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nPromotoras<\/em> \u2013 community health workers who go home-to-home \u2013 helped ease that anxiety. They delivered food and personal protection equipment and spoke one-on-one to residents about the virus.\r\n

<\/P>\r\nAmong those promotoras are Veronica Perez, who has lived in Guadalupe all her life, and Graciela Holgiun, who lives in Chandler but has friends and relatives in Guadalupe.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve worked in the medical field for many years,\u201d Holguin said, \u201cso I thought it\u2019d be something positive to help out people that needed it at the moment.\u201d\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThey both saw what was happening on the streets during the worst of it.\r\n

<\/P>\r\n\u201cBy July (2020), it started hitting a little bit home,\u201d Perez said. \u201cWe would have at least one or two deaths per week. I think that\u2019s when people started to realize that maybe something is really happening here.\u201d\r\n

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