City leaders from around New Jersey met Friday at a roundtable on the COVID-19 pandemic and recalled how they painfully learned to cope with the public health crisis. In 2020, COVID-19 swept quickly through densely populated neighborhoods, taking a disproportionate number of lives among people of color during the pandemic’s major surges.
“Black and brown communities were very hard hit and pressed to overcome these challenges,” said Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp. “When you have a community like Plainfield, with so many immigrants — a lot of them undocumented and living in very close quarters — that also was a big issue that led to the spread of the virus in certain populations.”
The mayors and health care providers discussed overcoming vaccine hesitancy and dealing with burnout in small, local health departments overwhelmed by the pandemic. Their insights will be recorded by the state’s COVID-19 Task Force on Racial and Health Disparities, as lessons learned the hard way, and perhaps as a guide for the future.
