RELATED: Hundreds of students across US in quarantine after COVID-19 outbreaks at reopened schoolsThe failure of health departments across the U.S.
to adequately investigate coronavirus outbreaks among non-English speakers is all the more fraught given the soaring and disproportionate case counts among Latinos in many states.
Four of the hardest-hit states -- Florida, Texas, Arizona and California -- have major Spanish-speaking populations.In the ZIP code with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Maryland, 56% of adults speak Spanish.
But only 60 of Maryland’s 1,350 contact tracers speak Spanish.And the language barriers go beyond Spanish: Minneapolis needs tracers who also speak Somali, Oromo and Hmong, Chicago needs Polish speakers and.