Fresno County to work on educating underserved communities on COVID-19
Local leaders are focused on increasing testing and offering more resources in Black, Hispanic, and refugee communities.
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno County is trying to eliminate outbreaks in several hot spots.
Skaggs Bridge Park along the San Joaquin River was identified as one of them. The area has been popular with crowds of people looking to cool off and that has county supervisors worried.
"There was a person there, I'm sure there were multiple people there that have the virus, and now there are many people who are infected today because of that," says Fresno County Supervisor Brian Pacheco.
The sheriff made some areas off-limits to reduce the number of people but county leaders say more education is needed.
Fresno County will now spend millions of dollars to focus on education, outreach, and contact tracing in disadvantaged communities.
"The allocation is specifically for our African American community for approximately $1.6 million and then we have an extra allocation for approximately $3.9 to target our immigrant and refugee outreach efforts," says Fresno EOC CEO Emilia Reyes.
300 contact tracers will be trained and deployed to help people know what testing resources are available.
Supervisors say the Economic Opportunities Commission was selected to use the CARES Act funding because it already works with 17 community-based organizations.
The EOC says the community-based organizations already have the trust of the families they serve so gathering information for contact tracing and sharing information on available resources should be easier.
