South Bay City's Coronavirus Surge Alarms Dr. Sara Cody: Report

GILROY, CA — A surge in coronavirus cases in the Gilroy area has alarmed public health officials in Santa Clara county, The Mercury News reports.

Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said Tuesday she was “extraordinarily distressed” by the steep rise in cases and hospitalizations in an update with the Board of Supervisors according to the report.

“Traditionally in our community when rates are high, this is where we see the most growth,” Cody said according to the report.

As is the case throughout much of the country, cases and hospitalizations in Santa Clara County have exploded in recent weeks, leading to the county being placed under more onerous restrictions.

Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed Santa Clara and 28 other counties back from the red tier to the most restrictive purple tier Monday in the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

The county had just moved from the orange tier to the red three days earlier.

The Gilroy area was among two regions cited in the Mercury News report that are of particular concern to Cody. East San Jose is the other.

Both South Bay cities have large Latino populations. Following a trend throughout the nation, Latinos and Blacks have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

According the United States Census, 58.2 percent of Gilroy’s population is Latino or Hispanic.

According to The Santa Clara County Public Health Department’s dashboard, as of Wednesday Latinos account for 58 percent of the county’s 29,023 coronavirus cases but just 25.8 percent of the county’s population.

“When our rates are low, those disparities decease, and as the rates increase, so do the disparities,” Cody said according to the report.

These disparities became apparent early on the pandemic.

Poncho Guevara, executive director of the nonprofit Sacred Heart Community Service described the disparities in an interview with San Jose Spotlight in April as "a tale of two valleys."

“People are living in different conditions, in different neighborhoods with conditions of overcrowding, making less money than their counterparts," Guevara said according to the Spotlight report.

"Here in the same valley, the access to educational opportunities, employment opportunities and health care are all weighted against them."

Read more at The Mercury News

This article originally appeared on the Los Gatos Patch