The Intersection Received A Grant From National Association Of Black Journalists - Issue #40

Aug 29, 2022

Last week, I learned that The Intersection Mag will receive a grant from the National Association of Black Journalists, a historic journalism organization. I will be using the grant to report on at the intersection of COVID-19, the Black community, and education in Prince George's County. I will be producing four articles on this topic.

As you know, reporting on COVID-19 is one of the topics of the publication and newsletter. Black people and other people of color in Maryland remain disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. People are still dying, and families are still trying to navigate the virus.

Prince George's County leads the state of Maryland in Covid-19 cases. According to the Health Equity Tracker, the county's vaccination rate is one of the highest in the state. With few resources, the Prince George's County Department of Health has worked tirelessly to get relevant information to its residents. However, Dr. Ernest Carter, health officer at the department, announced that he would be departing the agency. Who will take his position? Will the next person have a background in virology? I reached out to the agency, asking these questions. No one has returned my phone calls or emails yet.

Screenshot from the Health Equity Tracker.

Over the summer, the local health department acknowledged the rise in Covid-19 cases - and encouraged residents to return to masking to slow the spread. To me, it's not clear if all residents participated in doing so. Some did. I saw them at the Target in Forestville Mall! Cases continued to increase. What we know now is that Dr. Monica Goldson, CEO of Prince George's County Public Schools, has reinstated a mask mandate for all staff and students.

The BA.5 variant is a highly contagious variant. This variant is so contagious that the White House has predicted that this fall it is possible that 100 million people may contract the virus. Pfizer and Moderna have developed a new booster specifically for this variant for teenagers and adults. Vaccinations help to reduce death and severe illness.

There are also data gaps in the county, as well as everywhere else. Though cases are still relatively high, we don't know exactly how high because people haven't consistently reported positive home testing kits to the state. The lack of data has been a concern for many local health departments throughout the U.S. In addition to all of this, Monkey Pox is spreading in Maryland.

About one year ago, I interviewed Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins University, during the summer of 2021. During that time, the spread of the Delta variant was declining, and the White House was still rolling out the new vaccines.

He advocated for as many people to get vaccinated during the summer months. With data and expertise backing him, he believed that if people waited until the fall to get vaccinated, it wouldn't be enough to limit the spread. It is during the cold months when the virus rapidly spreads. People spend more time inside than outdoors.

Ray is worried about the fall. In the fall of 2020 — Covid -19 cases spiked. The Delta variant could also spike during the fall or another kind of variant. Ray said now is the time for people to take advantage of getting vaccinated.

“I don’t think we can wait until things get bad to start vaccinating people,” he explained. “That is not how the vaccine works. You need to give it time to work.”

Muiltigenerational households seem to be hit the hardest during this time. The time to apply mitigation strategies - masking, ventilation, and boosters - would have been during the summer months. This concern was recently reported in a piece by the Atlantic Magazine.

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