SEC. BECERRA: Jonathan, thanks for having me. And by the way, thanks for everything you’ve done.

MR. CAPEHRAT: Oh, well, thank you very much. For whatever I’ve done, I thank you. Well, let’s dig into the–let’s dig into the health disparities, Mr. Secretary, experienced by Latino communities. First, how have barriers such as a lack of pharmacies, hospitals, and transportation affected health outcomes before and during the pandemic?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, Jonathan, as you know, if you live in a food desert, or if you live in a medical service desert, it makes it far more difficult for you and your family to get the type of services and have the type of health that would be possible if all those things within–were within your reach. In some cases, you could live in a big city and be just blocks away from a nice hospital, but you just can’t afford it. You may as well live in a desert. And so that has produced results which today we recognize as social determinants of health. So you grow up poor, that’s one of the determinants of what your health will be moving forward. If you grow up without access to health insurance, that’s also going to determine a great deal of how your health will look once you’re older. And so no one should be surprised when some 40- or 50-year-old presents, more than likely, if you’re coming from a community of color, your health isn’t as good as someone who’s had access to health care all his or her life, who’ve had the right foods available in grocery stores around the block. And so those are the kinds of things that happen when you have those disparities that persist in America. And pandemic, COVID-19, really exposed those far beyond so–even though most of us knew they were there. Now everyone knows.

MR. CAPEHART: Well, then that anticipates the next question I was going to ask, and that was how has inadequate access to primary care physicians hindered testing, treating, and educating patients about COVID-19 and the vaccines?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, it’s like trying to fly a jet plane without having gone to the courses on how to fly to begin with. If you–if you try to go all the way from the start, you’re never going to succeed. So, you can’t expect communities who haven’t had access to have the best outcomes. And the more we prevent communities from having ready, readily accessible access to the things we need, we’re going to continue to suffer. The name that comes to my mind most is Deamonte Driver, a young boy in the state of Maryland who had a toothache. But because his parents didn’t have insurance, didn’t have much money, they–you let the–your child go as long as you can. Well, that toothache turned into an infection, an abscess. And before you know it, that young man actually died because what started off as a toothache became an infection. That’s what happens when you don’t have health insurance. That’s an extreme case, but it happens.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, one of the–I mean, the access to healthcare and insurance is one thing, but in its public education campaigns, how has your department tackled language barriers that can affect Latinos and other communities in terms of accessing healthcare, accessing the vaccines?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, we’ve broken down those barriers, Jonathan. We understand how important it is to communicate. And you who are in media know how important it is to communicate often, repetitively, in order to get a message across. And so that’s what we’ve done. We dedicated a lot of resources to get messages out. We don’t wait for people to come to us. We go to them. When it came time for people to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces, we didn’t wait for people to go onto the website and look for us. We went out to the community and made sure we got to all those communities that didn’t get access to care easily and haven’t always signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

And this time, we had a really good product to sell because the president made possible through the American Rescue Plan reduced rates for quality health insurance, so much so that for many people, including folks in the Black and brown community, we were able to offer them health insurance coverage, quality health insurance coverage for less than $10 a month. You can’t even go see a movie for $10–in one movie. And so it was a great deal, and fortunately we got a lot of folks who bought in.

MR. CAPEHRAT: You know, Mr. Secretary, nearly one in four homecare workers is Latino. Two in five Latinos are caregivers for family members. So what steps is HHS taking to help the care workforce moving forward?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, we’re making major investments, Jonathan, in home and community-based services because we know how critical having access to care is for any family, but if you’re a low-income family, even more so. And oftentimes we know that some of these families rely on relatives or close friends to provide some of that care. It used to be done without being able to be reimbursed or compensated. More and more, we’re realizing that these folks are providing indispensable care, not just that–just to that family member or friend, but to America, because otherwise those folks would be–end up in institutions where taxpayers probably would have to pay a good portion of that bill. So, we are making a major investment in home and community-based services because we see how important it is. And I s
ay that personally, as the caregiver for my father before he perished. He–my mom and he moved into my home four years before he left us on New Year’s Day 2020, and we were with him and we were essentially his hospice caregivers for the most part, those last six months when he was less mobile, unable to care for himself. So, there is such value in it, and I say that personally. Everyone should have the opportunity to let their loved ones live out their lives in dignity.

MR. CAPEHART: Well, Mr. Secretary, my condolences to you on the passing of your father. And it just makes me wonder, how did that experience impact the way you approach your job as the Secretary of Health and Human Services?

SEC. BECERRA: You know, Jonathan, I tell folks, if you want to know where a leader is going to take you, look at where that leader’s come from. And for me, I came from a family where my parents did everything they could for me. They couldn’t do a lot, because they didn’t have a lot of money. But they did enough that I felt like I thought I was middle class until I started college, and I saw what middle-class folks really–you know, how they lived. And the beauty of that is that I’ve learned that it was not easy, and it was not free. And for me now, it is so important. And so when my father was in his last years, his last stages of life, it was a no-brainer. We were going to be there. Actually, I learned it best, quite honestly, through my wife and her parents, because she’s got a larger family, family of eight kids. They were there every moment for their two parents. And I had never seen death with such dignity as I saw when, Carolina [phonetic], my wife’s mother, passed. And I said to myself, if ever my parents get to that stage, that’s what I want. You had grandkids, great grandkids in the house. As my wife’s mother was getting ready to pass, everyone was going through. It almost was like a party, because no one felt like it was a mournful time. None of the kids were afraid to see their great grandma. That’s the kind of thing you want, because it was true love there. And we should make that available. We shouldn’t say oh, no, no, we’re not going to do that for you because we don’t want to reimburse you for some of the costs that you had, instead send them off to an institution where we’re paying thousands of dollars that most people can’t afford, and therefore we as taxpayers have to cover. It makes no sense.

MR. CAPEHART: You’re also the son–you’re the son of immigrants. And I’m also wondering how has–how is that part of your life story influencing the way you go about your job at HHS.

SEC. BECERRA: So no barrier going to get in our way, and nothing we can’t accomplish. And that comes because when you’re the son of immigrants, you have optimism running in your DNA. And you learn the hard way, but you realize every time you get to climb to that next stage of the mountain, how beautiful it can be. And so I take with me those stories, those experiences, and I try to make sure that I don’t let others miss those opportunities that should be there for everyone. And so I was fortunate to have people who worked very hard to give me a chance. I’m the first in my family to get a four-year degree. I am the first one in my family to have a chance to be–get in front of a camera. And I will tell you, this opportunity should be available to anybody, regardless of your income, where you live, or what your immigration status is.

MR. CAPEHART: So, we are in a much different place today than we were two years ago, or even three months ago. Do you believe we’ve finally entered a less dangerous phase in the pandemic?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, Jonathan, we’re certainly in a less dangerous phase. But there’s still danger. When you still have some 2,000 Americans dying every day from COVID, you still have several thousand in hospitals every day because of COVID, some 60,000-70,000 cases every day because of COVID, you’re not out of the woods. But we are in a far different place than we were a year ago, a month ago, even a week ago. And so we’ve just got to continue to see the improvement. The president last week in the State of the Union made that very clear. And we’re just going to continue to work because we know everyone wants to get back to those days where it was easy to go to work, kids could play at school, and we all feel pretty good about hugging each other. And so that’s what we want to see, but we’ve got work to do. And we have a responsibility to take care of each other.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, late last month Governor Gavin Newsom issued an endemic plan for California, your home state. You used to be the attorney general there. The White House announced on Wednesday an endemic plan of its own, declaring that shutdowns and school closures are over. Your thoughts on those moves.

SEC. BECERRA: Well, it’s a sign that we have to say something very important to the American people. Thank you. Thank you for paying attention, for getting vaccinated, for wearing those masks as aggravating as sometimes it could be, of testing when you needed to, of social distancing, of taking care of your kids, washing your hands, doing all the things that the scientists have told us will work. Thank you for that.

And to those who haven’t yet, please join us. Help us. Let’s all be responsible. Let’s do what we know works so we can really say that COVID is behind us.

MR. CAPEHART: You’ve recently announced a new mental and behavioral health campaign to deal with the long-term impact of COVID. What’s the goal?

SEC. BECERRA: Well, as I said, the president has made it very clear we’re leaving no one behind, and that–he could have been a member of my family saying that: We don’t leave people behind. You could have been part of that army unit, you know, you don’t leave anybody behind. And so when it comes to what we’re doing here, it’s we’re not leaving anyone behind. And so we’ve just got to continue the work we know we need to do. And we’re going to make sure that those who are suffering from things like long COVID, those who are experiencing mental distress because of the situation–maybe you lost your job–we’re going be there. We’re helping our state partners and our local partners make sure we get–put resources out there for the healthcare workforce. They’ve been resilient. Many of them haven’t had a vacation day in a long time. We’re going to make sure that they know we’ve got their backs because they’ve been there for us.

And so we’re going to do what we can. We have several programs that we’re initiating. And if Congress passes a budget that includes the president’s request, we’ll have more money to deal with mental health needs. And we’re going to do whatever we can to let people know that it’s important that we treat mental health the same as we would treat physical health.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, one of the things–I should have asked you this earlier–but talk about the difficulty over the last two years of building trust around public health measures against the backdrop of misinformation, political division, and even people questioning science, even though science is constantly changing.

SEC. BECERRA: Yeah, that’s a great question, because the misinformation has been out there fast and furious, and it’s made it difficult, especially for communities where the information they get sometimes is hard to come by, or it’s not clear who they can trust. And so we’ve tried very hard. That’s where I mentioned earlier that we don’t wait for folks to come to us. We go to them. And we use trusted voices to make sure we’re communicating. Whether it’s the priest, whether it’s the schoolteacher, whether it’s the soccer coach, we’re going to use those who really do connect with families, because we want them to know that we want to include them.

I constantly have to say, especially in Spanish language press, that when it comes to vaccines, President Biden wants to make those accessible to everyone, free of charge. Because too many folks in communities that are disadvantaged, they find it hard to believe that they’re getting something of quality free of charge. They’re used to getting something not of quality for a high price, when they go into those rip-off stores that they’re only–the only thing they can find in the neighborhood. And so when somebody offers you something really good free of charge, you wonder. And so what we have to do is just communicate over and over that we’ve actually got a great product for you that could actually save your life and it’s free. And the more we let folks know, the more changes.

And by the way, in May of 2021, about two-thirds of White Americans had received at least one shot of the vaccine on COVID. Black and brown communities, about 54 percent or so–substantially behind the White community. Beginning of this year, we changed that a lot. White Americans, about 83 percent, 84 percent. Black Americans about 82, 83 percent. Latinos, about 84 percent. We worked hard at that. It was no accident.

MR. CAPEHART: And there’s are great stats to learn about.

Mr. Secretary, we have time for one more question. And I’ve got to ask you this because The Washington Post and other news outlets have been writing about–how do you respond to the reports that say that you have taken too passive a role in the pandemic? Is that criticism fair?

SEC. BECERRA: You know, my dad used to say it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. My dad was a construction worker. And it made no difference to anyone, his foreman or the company owner, what he said he would do. It’s what he did. And I’ve got to tell you, my dad was one of the best builders America’s ever seen. He was never a loud guy. He didn’t speak English very well. He was always kind of shy about that. All I learned all my life was perform, get it done, whether it’s laying that asphalt for that highway or was building that concrete driveway for your neighbor, you get it done. And that’s what we’re going to do. And fortunately, we have a president who lets me get things done. I’m going to continue to do them so long as I have an opportunity, because that’s what I learned when I grew up.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, you used a terrific word there, and that was “perform.” And I wonder to your mind, as someone who’s been in politics for years, in Washington, do you think there’s too much emphasis put on perform in terms of performance for the cameras, that as long as someone is performing for the cameras, they must be doing the job?

SEC. BECERRA: Yeah, it’s the show horse versus the work horse. I’ll tell you, here’s where my mom gives me the best advice. She always tells me remember Jimmy [phonetic]. She’s always telling me about the story about this kind Jimmy who would always go to church, always religiously go to church and he’d always say to the Lord, hey, Lord, I’m here. I just wanted to check in with you. And he’s always do that and always do that. And some of his friends would ask, well, you know, why do you do that? You don’t need to go to church all the time. And he’d say, yeah, well, that’s what I do. And of course, as he aged in life and as he was getting ready to leave this place, he had the Lord come to him and say, hey, Jimmy, I’m with you today. And so she always tells me that story. This is a woman who still prays the rosary every night. And all I know is that if I do things the right way, someone will r
ecognize it. You don’t have to be a show horse. Just do your work.

MR. CAPEHART: All right, that’s actually kind of a mantra that I try to live by, just do the work.

One more question for you, Mr. Secretary. The Post reported it can sometimes be unclear who makes final decisions or is in charge of implementing new initiatives. What’s your response?

SEC. BECERRA: Oh, there’s no doubt. The guy at the top, Joe Biden is–he’s the president. He makes the call. When it comes to COVID, if you’re asking about COVID, he set up a team before he even took office officially to deal with COVID. Jeff Zients has been the coordinator out of the White House for that. At HHS, I’m the secretary. We execute on much of what the president wants done. We’re the team that has NIH, FDA, CDC, our H-CORE program is the logistics operation that made sure that those masks, that those tests, those vaccines get where they need to go. But no doubt, the quarterback is in the White House.

MR. CAPEHART: Xavier Becerra, 25th secretary of Health and Human Services. Mr. Secretary, we are out of time. Thank you very much for coming to Washington Post Live.

SEC. BECERRA: Thanks, Jonathan.

MR. CAPEHART: Coming up, the mayor of Santa Ana, California, Vicente Sarmiento.

MS. UMOH: The pandemic has not only devastated communities of color over the past two years, but it’s also shined a bright light on health inequities, particularly in Latino communities across the U.S. I’m Ruth Umoh, editor at Fortune, and my two guests today have made it their mission to get to the bottom of this issue by combining findings and best practices gained in and out of the pandemic to build a national model for better health for lower-income communities of color. I’m joined by the chairman and co-founder of SOMOS, Dr. Ramon Tallaj, and co-founder of SOMOS and noted Latino social movement leader, designer, and philanthropist Henry R. Munoz III. Welcome to you both.

MS. UMOH: Let’s kick things off–welcome, welcome. Let’s kick things off with you, Dr. Tallaj. Let me start by asking you about your new role. A few weeks ago, New York City Mayor Eric Adams named you one of the co-chairs of his new COVID-19 Recovery Round Table and Health Equity Task Force. Can you talk to us about your goals for this task force and the role health equity plays in moving New York City and really the entire country past the pandemic toward an endemic?

DR. TALLAJ: Thank you, Ruth. As the co-chair of New York City Health Equity Force, we are working with nearly 40 very important experts in the areas of healthcare, education, hospitality, and even homeless services. Leaders who truly know their communities have the skills and talent to get things done. The task force is focused on [unclear] best partnerships and bringing a model not just for New York. We believe it will work for the entire country. We need to learn from that.

We are doing it by addressing the problems that already are affecting Latino Americans and many poor Americans on a daily basis. For instance, in New York City, our public housing developments are full of mold, lead, and below living standards. These are driving factors that led to so many decades of diabetes, hypertension, childhood obesity, and overall asthma–conditions brought on by poverty. So, what this task force is trying to do is that on the country’s recovery mostly focused in improving total condition, healthcare not only by itself. At SOMOS, for example, we are inventing healthcare in the most vulnerable communities, focusing on preventive care with community doctors. This means we are addressing condition before they become emergencies. Let me say this to you. If COVID-19 has taught us something, is that we can no longer ignore all the inequities that were there for many years and is still here. That change must happen. Only that way we can call this recovery. Preventive care, for me, is the key for the future.

MS. UMOH: On this topic of recovery, let me pass the mic to you, Henry. You have designed as many social and political movements as you have designed university campuses, parks and public facilities. Now you’re using those same skills to design a major health care intervention. What have you found in talking with Latino voters about their health care concerns? And subsequently, what can we learn from that?

MR. MUNOZ: That’s an important question. You know, one of the things that happens in our community is that we fall through the cracks of data and research. But we at SOMOS have been polling and collecting research since the very earliest days of this pandemic, and the story that it tells us that things have not gotten better for our community. Thirty seven percent of us during this time of the pandemic have gone without insurance, which means we have no access. Sixty-even percent of us don’t just believe that there’s barriers to health care. We actually believe that there is racism in health care, in a very complex system. Twenty-two percent of us have delayed treatment that we need. Can you imagine the impact that it has on cancer treatment, for example?

And here’s the saddest number. Only a third of us today have access to a primary care physician–the very building block of preventative care, as Ramon just said. So, I think the lesson for all of us is that we shouldn’t take–nobody should take us for granted, that we need to be heard, and that the roadmap for this midterm election, and in fact for the future health of this country, is through the Latino community.

MS. UMOH: Those numbers, those stats you shared are quite grim and quite damning as well. Dr. Tallaj, you and the thousands of doctors in the SOMOS network are on the ground in low-income communities every day. What concerns are you and your doctors hearing from their patients?

DR. TALLAJ: Let me tell you, I’m in Washington Heights, a poor/middle-class neighborhood, for over 20 years as a medical practitioner. The scene I’m seeing now, all night long, hasn’t gotten better. As a matter of fact, they’re getting worse. The resources that have been used to improve the health care of our communities are not allocated properly.

I’ll give you an example. They don’t address poverty, or total health. This is why the pandemic hit us so hard and so many people died during this pandemic. At SOMOS, we were at that point the only one ready to go. And to act. We were looking for solutions. If you don’t focus on prevention, nothing will change. Our society will continue to be sick. For me, prevention is the solution. That’s what we want policymakers to focus on. As we work together to rebuild from the pandemic, we have to come back better than we were. And our country I believe deserves that. We can’t come back to the same.

MS. UMOH: Henry, let’s end by looking to the future. What do you want policymakers to know about how to improve health equity for Latinos, and frankly, for all struggling Americans who identify as people of color?

MR. MUNOZ: I want them to understand that the health of the Latino community is the health of the United States of America. We’re the fastest growing demographic group in this country. I don’t want them to ignore these findings. I want them to listen. I want them to understand that it’s important to put prevention in front of profit. I want them to understand that there can be a new model of health care–health care that is closer to the community, health care that is dependent upon the success of the primary care physician, that is delivered in language, that is delivered in culture, and that where people see themselves in the healthcare worker, I want them to understand that when the essential worker has the same quality of health care that the CEO has, then America will truly be healthy. That’s what I want them to understand. And I think Ramon and the thousands of doctors who are part of SOMOS have begun that work and are beginning to prove that there can be a new national model.

MS. UMOH: It’s great to see the both of you addressing these longstanding systemic health disparities in the Latino community. Dr. Tallaj, Henry, thank you both for your time.

Now back to The Washington Post.

MR. CAPEHART: Good afternoon. I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome back to Washington Post Live again, another in our series on race in America, this time looking at health disparities in Latino communities. We continue the conversation on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Latino communities with Mayor Vicente Sarmiento of Santa Ana, California. Mayor Sarmiento, welcome to Washington Post Live.

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Hi, Jonathan. It’s great to be with you. Thank you.

MR. CAPEHART: Sure. So, talk about the demographics of your city, of Santa Ana, and how that factored into how you navigated the pandemic these last two years.

MAYOR: Yeah, so, you know, our city is approximately 330,000 in size, in population, and close to 80 percent of the city is Latino, or Hispanic, and more than 40 percent are foreign born. So, we have a lot of recent arrival immigrants here. And so, you know, we unfortunately suffered a lot of losses, and many people who we lost here in the city as a result of sort of the perfect storm in this pandemic, because we had many families that live in, you know, overcrowded conditions because of, you know, just disparities in rent and not being able to, you know–you know, live in single unit homes.

And we also had many families that, you know, are frontline essential workers, and so couldn’t work from home or virtually. And you also had people that, you know, had underlying health conditions pre-pandemic. So, you had people that suffered from diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. So, all these three factors just lent themselves to a proliferation and a spike in in coronavirus cases but more importantly, in a lot of loss of life. So, we suffered about a thousand losses here in Santa Ana, and these were, you know, neighbors, relatives, friends, people in the community that had close ties to everyone. So, it was pretty devastating on our community.

MR. CAPEHART: How–I asked this of the secretary earlier about the impact of misinformation, disinformation, lack of trust, all sorts of issues that have gotten in the way of public officials tackling the pandemic. How have you dealt with those very same issues at the local level as mayor of a city?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: You know, it’s really challenging because I think a lot of our community–because many are monolingual Spanish speakers, right?–get their news and get their information from their local press sources. And what the city is pushing out sometimes isn’t as effective, because it’s done either in Spanish–or excuse me, in English, and not in multi-language efforts. That’s something we’ve now changed and realize that, you know, hitting send on an email and thinking that’s the way you message to a community like ours, is not the way to communicate. The way to communicate is embedding yourself in neighborhoods, talking to people and establishing that trust so when you do reach folks, they’re able to–you’re able to have some credibility. And being able to talk to somebody in their own, you know, language of origin is huge, right?

So, you know, we did battle some of the–you know, some of the media outlets that were really proliferating not only misinformation but dangerous information, you know, and so–folks believes that because that’s where they got their–you know, their information. So that is something that was really challenging, because not only are you are–you know, we as government trying to inform and educate people and keep them safe, you know, provide science-based information but you’re trying to offset that with a counternarrative that is very, very different and completely contrary to what we’re trying to, you know, inform people with.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, you said in your answer about, you know, before hitting send on an email making sure is this the way we should be communicating, but what are you doing to support residents who aren’t on, say, social media? Obviously, you have folks in your–in your city who don’t speak English. How are you getting–how are you getting messages across to them? Also, folks who don’t have access to health information, how–what are all the ways you are getting or at least trying to get health information but also coronavirus-specific information to the people of your city?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Yeah, so it’s not even sol
ely an issue of language disparity, right? We’re also talking about households that aren’t even connected to the internet. So, you have this, you know, dual problem. So, what we did during 2020, when vaccines weren’t even available and weren’t developed at that time, we took our information and our resources and embedded ourselves in neighborhoods. So rather than having, you know, sites where people could go to because we knew people had transportation problems as well, we went to more than a hundred neighborhoods and took our mobile, you know, trucks and resources and delivered, you know, about 35,000 tests, and we delivered more than 300,000 facemasks. So those are ways that we realized it is kind of going back to, you know, grassroots efforts, going back to talking to people, going door to door, because these are folks that, again, need to have that–have that contact.

So, it was tricky, because, again, this was prior to the delivery of the vaccine. And you know, we had many of our staff going out and risking their lives, you know, having to go and communicate with our residents. But we knew that that was the only way we could effectively communicate and provide resources because, again, we had problems and challenges with respect to, you know, just access to the internet, problems and challenges with respect to language. So we just felt that this was probably the most effective, although, you know, labor intensive way to do it. But I saw that other communities, once they saw us doing this, starting to emulate and replicate what we did here, because it really was kind of going back to, you know, sort of a maybe, you know, a grassroots more old, less conventional way to do it–but, look, a more effective way to do it, I believe.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, last year, your city got a two-year $4 million grant from the Office of Minority Health to boost vaccination rates and access to accurate COVID-19 information in hard-hit communities of color. Have you seen the impact you hoped for from that funding?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: You know, I did. I think that is one additional element that we had, in addition to receiving Rescue Plan money. So I do need to give, you know, our thanks to, you know, President Biden, and you know, Secretary Becerra, because, you know, with the Rescue Plan money, that, in addition to the–you know, the $4 million grant that we received from the Office of Minority Affairs, you know, we were–you know, at the height of the pandemic, where Santa Ana was hardest hit, we had maybe, you know, one in four people testing positive. And this is, you know, prior to the vaccine being delivered. You know, and so we went through, you know, all the efforts that I just described. And now we have, you know, vaccination rates in those same ZIP codes that were suffering losses of life, you know, upwards of 80 percent, 85 percent. So, we now have some of the lowest positivity rate in our county. So, we are the county seat, you know, here in Orange, and we’re 34 cities large. You know, we probably are the most demographically different from Orange County, even though the county is considered, you know, one of the most affluent counties in the country, it’s the fifth or sixth largest. But Santa Ana is, you know, sort of the core of that county, and we have some very different problems in our neighboring 33 cities. So, you know, we’re real proud of that pendulum that we’ve been able to swing to the other side, because, again, it took a lot of hard work. But it was–you know, labor-intensive work–but it was work that we know now not just for the pandemic but for other issues having to deal with vital information to, you know, communities of color like ours, immigrant communities, and low-income communities. So, you have those three factors intersecting. And we realize that you can’t do things in an easy way. In other words, again, sending out an e-blast and expecting, you know, people to be informed as a result of that, we really do need to do things in a very non-traditional, non-conventional way to have the most impact.

MR. CAPEHART: You know, one thing that we–before the pandemic, one thing we always knew was that there were disparities in health care, in access to health care; if you had a health care, then disparities in the quality of care that you were able to get. And then COVID hits, and those disparities are now too big to ignore, because of who’s being impacted. I would love for you to talk about how those disparities manifested themselves in Santa Ana during the pandemic and what steps you’ve taken to try to address them as a result of COVID.

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Look, I’ll give you some really specific examples. When the vaccine was, you know, being delivered, you know, the state sent the vaccine inventory to the counties so the county could deliver them to the cities. Here in Santa Ana, we knew that the epicenter of the–you know, the pandemic was here in our city. Unfortunately, vaccines were going to other parts of the county, more affluent communities, you know, more White communities. And that’s when, you know, I think the tide turned, when everybody, you know, especially me, look, started shouting at the top of my lungs, you know, we have to get the vaccine delivered to where the problem is. And so, you know, as I said, many of our residents are frontline essential workers that couldn’t take time off. So, they were still going out and doing domestic work, working in, you know, restaurants and in, you know, hospitals and other places. So, we knew that if we could curb, you know, the spike in positivity here, we knew it would help the entire county, but the vaccine was going elsewhere.

You know, Governor Newsom came, and he delivered, you know, a speech here, when he kind of turned the tide and said, he’s going to–he’s going to stop delivering vaccine to counties that don’t get them to the hardest hit communities. So that’s where I saw things really change here in our city, in our county, when that was said. But it looked–it took, you know, many of us, you know, just again, getting so frustrated that the logical step of bringing, you know, and delivering vaccine to, you know, communities that were hardest hit wasn’t being done. So, we saw that as really a pivotal moment. But again, it shouldn’t have to be that way.

And for us, you know, we know that we don’t have our own public health–municipal public health department. We rely on the county for delivery of care. They are the agency that’s vested with that responsibility. What’s unfortunate is that, you know, it’s not an equitable way of delivering health care. So, the second thing that we did with some of the Rescue Plan money that we received is we’re investing now in a feasibility study to see how our city can separate from the county and create its own public municipal health care department. Because we know that we have such a unique demographic, such a, you know, difficult demographic to identify, to work with, we know that we could do it really well. But again, I think this made us realize we had issues before the pandemic, but, you know, during the pandemic, it just magnified the disparity of delivery of care.

MR. CAPEHART: And then once the vaccines became available, one of the big topics of conversation in the country was about vaccine hesitancy. And it wasn’t, you know, a situation that was solely borne by communities of color there. There are lots of people across all sorts of demographics in the United States who were hesitant to take the vaccine. But in Santa Ana, did you have to deal with on a large-scale, large numbers of your–of the people who live in Santa Ana being unwilling initially to take the vaccine?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Yeah, I mean, we still have some of that, right? I mean, even though we have much better numbers with respect to, you know, vaccination rates, we still have, you know, parts of our community that–you know, again, I think you were talking about trust. Sometimes I think, you know, it’s hesitancy but it’s also misinformation that’s proliferated to them. And we see a lot of, you know, folks that are immigrants that, you know, are undocumented. And you know, they’ve been told that, you know, by taking the vaccine, you’re going to be able–you’re going to be tracked, they’re going to be able to find you, and you know–and deport you based upon, you know–you know, this vaccine. Well, all those things we’ve had to dispute, we’ve had to clarify. But I think, you know, the first step in that is creating trust, because, you know, again, they’re receiving this information from news outlets that maybe not–are not as credible. You’re receiving them from people that, you know, aren’t authorities and aren’t public health professionals. So, you know, they’re being told a lot of different things. And unfortunately, you know, they–you know, our undocumented immigrant population doesn’t have a trusted source of information. So that’s where I think communities like ours need to connect, need to be able to establish that relationship where, you know, all things being equal, they need to know that they can trust their local governments to be able to at least protect them, provide accurate information so they can make informed decisions. Because again, it’s not a matter of mandating or it’s not a matter of forcing anybody, because we understand there are beliefs that are deeply held, especially in immigrant communities that are faith-based, and we completely respect that. But it’s a matter of that informed consent or informed decision that really is a challenge for many of us to be able to establish that relationship with folks in the community.

MR. CAPEHART: You mentioned Governor Newsom a moment ago, but late last month, the governor issued an endemic plan for California. The White House announced on Wednesday that–an endemic plan of its own, declaring shutdowns and school closures are over. I would love your thoughts on these moves. And what is your long-term strategy for Santa Ana living with COVID?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Look, I believe, you know, being responsible and being incremental in the way we transition out of this pandemic. So, I do–you know, I do applaud the governor and the White House for giving us steps that are forecasting how we can, you know, move forward. I think, for communities like Santa Ana, because I think not all policies fit all regions, right? And so I think for those of us that have dealt with this in such an acute, in such a strong way and been so impacted, I think we want to take slow steps out of this. We don’t want to just say, okay, it’s over, this is an endemic at this point and let’s, you know, just forget about all the protocols and all the protective steps that we took. So, for me as mayor, I mean, my hope is that we can transition out. We’re seeing that, you know, our schools are now opening up. We see now that, you know, a lot of our facilities now are available to the public to enjoy. And we want to balance that because, you know, Jonathan, one thing I would tell you is that what’s hurt me is that I’ve seen many families and especially, you know, children who’ve been, you know, impacted emotionally and psychologically by just not being able to connect with peers, not being able to connect with, you know, sort of daily life routines of being in parks, playing, you know, with their neighbors and other kids. Those things have long-term impacts. So that has to be offset and balanced with being protective about making sure nobody continues to get, you know, ill from COVID. But we do have to find a way that our families, especially those families that we have in Santa Ana that don’t have many other outlets, and they’re living in small spaces, you know, we want them out, hopefully, playing in parks, you know, being able to do things safely, but also transitioning them from this very sequestered, you know, condition that they’ve been living with into now being able to just develop and grow into young adults.

MR. CAPEHART: So, Mr. Mayor, final question for you. You were elected in 2020. So, you’ve been sort of halfway through your first term as mayor, right?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Actually, we have two-year terms. So, we’re at the almost at the end of my first term.

MR. CAPEHART: Okay, so almost end of your first term. Asking the question because I want to get to the larger, quick question. What lessons have you learned as mayor guiding a city, guiding your city through a global pandemic?

MAYOR SARMIENTO: Look, the first lesson I think I, you know, learned is that when you’re in a crisis, you can’t do things in a simple way. You can’t do things that seem expedient, that seem efficient. You really have to step back and realize that, you know, nobody signs up for this type of work as mayor, you know, because normally we’re doing–dealing with infrastructure and filling potholes and making sure people’s, you know, streetlights are operating. But when you’re dealing with people who are facing loss of life, loss of a loved one, and just a crisis, what you have to do is just step back and evaluate and realize we have to do everything we possibly can to provide accurate information, resources. And if it takes going into neighborhoods, walking door to door, those are things that now I take away as mayor, and hopefully our entire city realizes that we just have to do things as–you know, as effective as we can, even if it may be more labor intensive, even if it takes more time. But that’s something that for communities like ours, we have to define and tailor the way we communicate with folks. So that is something that we are going to take away not just on, you know, delivery of, you know, information, vaccine, and testing, but it is going to go towards rental assistance, towards business grants, towards resources that we know are going to follow this pandemic that is really an economic crisis. You know, people who are just transitioning back to work, you know, transitioning children back to school. We realize that these lessons that we learned during the pandemic, they’re going to continue in other efforts as we communicate with our neighbors and residents.

MR. CAPEHART: Mayor Vicente Sarmiento of Santa Ana, California, thank you very, very much for coming to Washin
gton Post Live.

MAYOR SARMIENTO: It’s great to be with you. Thank you, Jonathan.

MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up, head to WashingtonPostLive.com. Once again, I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thanks again for tuning in to Washington Post Live.