Op-ed

By Suzanne McGrath

November 13, 2021

 

Suzanne McGrath has been the president of CommunicAID, a homeless resource center located in Baltimore, since 2015. 

 

With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, CommunicAID concerns about our homeless community’s health with timely help. However, it is a tremendous challenge for CommunicAID to respond to the increasing number of the homelessness with their health status being unknown. 

 

CommunicAID has fifteen food pantries and seven shelters running across the Baltimore Area that lead CommunicAID has more than 400 residents currently. Such large flows from and into the broader community that potentially makes people reliant on the use of our food pantries and shelters are exposed to the risk of transmission of the virus. 

 

Having seen the successive large outbreaks that have infected dozens or hundreds of people in other shelters, CommunicAID is fully aware of the lack of full health crisis response. The precautions that have been taken for COVID — some of the physical distancing, strict rules of masking, well-ventilation open layouts of the shelter— all of those are going to help. And CommunicAID keeps following CDC instructions and getting feedback internally and externally. 

 

Though the percentage of Baltimore residents vaccinated has reached 74 % , the homeless community is still combating COVID-19 with limited access to vaccination. As the winter season approaches, CommunicAID believes more actions must be done to prevent our concerned community from being infected. And regular COVID-19 testing becomes the priority among priorities as a part of the precaution and early response. 

 

Given the severe and unpredictable circumstance our community is facing, CommunicAID starts with viral testing and screening testing for weekly testing and residents who are asymptomatic. For people who have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and have exposure to someone with a confirmed or suspected case, diagnostic testing is required. 

 

In our partnership with HealthWay Pharmacies, a local healthcare organization, two volunteer healthcare workers at each shelter test residents and CommunicAID workers every Friday. Last Friday was exactly two months into the testing, CommunicAID saw just two positive cases among 350 residents tested this week. Regular testing numbers varied throughout the summer and fall as the pandemic situation changed, but the cases never exploded.

 

The low number of reported positive cases also benefit from how these weekly tests allow CommunicAID to take one step further. Immediate quarantine and closely tracing help us to prevent the rest of the homeless community being infected, which is our ultimate goal. 

 

With the progress in the virus testing, CommunicAID expects to introduce the antibody testing in the near future, which will help to ​​detect previous infections and the effectiveness of the vaccine when our community has full access to it. 

 

As a part of the devoted family, I still see the current situation extremely worrying. The Homelessness Daily shows that more than 65% of the homelessness shelters do not have regular, weekly testing sites, which left a significant number of infected residents with limited quarantine, observation and timely treatment. And a small range of infections are sufficient to form chains of transmission and expand to regional outbreaks. 

 

CommunicAID understands there are no easy fixes as the virus could hit the homeless community equally or harder, and we are, at the same time, advocating for every effort to provide the homeless community resources and health measurements starting from asking residents to get their nose and throats swabbed. 

 

Watching the public health issue invade and hit the community we care about, our sense of responsibility and mission has never been as strong as it is now. It is never late to start with robust and regular testing to protect the most vulnerable.