Recognizing a community-centered approach is built on intentional partnerships and feedback from impacted communities.
Within the Austin-Travis County Emergency Operations Center, the following task forces guide and implement community engagement activities that address disparities to ensure that disparities are not inadvertently created or exacerbated.
Task Forces
Asian/Pacific Islander Task Force
This task force holds a bi-weekly Facebook Live, MyAPI Live, in multiple languages including Burmese, Vietnamese, and Mandarin. They have also been active in promoting the national StopAAPIhate initiative, which developed an incident report for instances of Asian American and Pacific Islander harassment.
Black/African Diaspora Task Force
This task force continues to provide and improve access to COVID-19 service delivery, social support, education, and outreach. They recently completed an 8 week series titled “The Village Speaks, in partnership with Saffron Trust on Instagram Liv
Good morning and welcome to the TimesOC newsletter.
It’s Friday, March 12. I’m Ben Brazil on rotation with my colleagues, editors John Canalis and Carol Cormaci, to bring you the latest roundup of Orange County news and events.
Indoor dining, gyms and other venues in Orange County that have been closed for some time may be able to reopen as soon as next week.
Reporters Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II reported Thursday that most California counties could move out of the state’s strictest COVID-19 tier if the state hits its goal of administering 2 million vaccine doses to underserved populations.
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Though the Latino community has taken the brunt of the pandemic in Orange County, the population only accounts for 12% of the people who have received at least one vaccine dose in the county.
There have been concerns that the county hasn’t adequately included underserved communities in its vaccine distribution plans, which focus on mass sites called Super PODs at Disneyland, Soka University and the soon-to-be site at the Anaheim Convention Center.
According to state data, the Latino population makes up about 35% of the county’s population but accounts for 49% of the county’s COVID-19 cases.
White people account for about 28% of the county’s COVID-19 cases, yet make up 48% of the recipients of at least one dose of a vaccine in the county, according to county data.