COVID-19 contract tracers continue to be in short supply. That鈥檚 especially true for bilingual ones.
According to health officials in Nevada, bilingual contract tracers are working seven days a week and up to 14 hours a day.
鈥淩ight now, it is a very difficult time, and as far as having enough [bilingual contact tracers], I don鈥檛 think anyone in the nation has enough,鈥� said Nevada epidemiologist Liliana Wilbert.
And some community members are hostile when they're contacted by them, according to Diane Sande with the Nevada Public Health Training Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you how selfless and how hard these contract tracers are working, and there are still a lot of people that when they receive that call from the contact tracer, they don鈥檛 want to give the right information, they hang up on them, they yell at them,鈥� Sande said.
Sande says many people in the Latino community already distrust the government. Some of that mistrust comes from a lack of Spanish public health messaging. Most public health resources are translated from English rather than written in Spanish, Sande says, which results in public health messaging getting lost in translation.
This story was produced by the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West 暗黑爆料 Bureau is provided in part by the .
Copyright 2020 KUNR Public Radio. To see more, visit .
