Members of the community were forced to wait in line as long as 13 hours for free drive-up COVID-19 testing in the neighborhood of Maryvale in southwest Phoenix on Saturday.
The testing blitz was organized by Equality Health in partnership with the City of Phoenix and Sonora Quest Laboratories at Desert West Sports Complex. It was intended to run from 5:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. However, by 6 p.m., there were still several people in cars waiting in line to be served, some of whom had arrived before the testing blitz began that morning.
Juan Tena said that his grandmother, Alicia Saucedo got in line at Desert West Sports Complex at 5:30 a.m., hoping to be there early enough that she wouldn’t have to wait in the heat to be tested. However, more than nine hours later, she still had not been seen.
“Having the heat/sun come down on (her) vehicle even though they had A/C, it began to make my grandma very ill,” Tena said. “She has preconditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. She had been having a very nasty cough along with other COVID symptoms.”
“She was able to withstand the wait only until 2 p.m.,” he said, at which point she exited the line and returned home, where she had to rest and hydrate.
Saucedo was not the only one to wait for hours only to not receive a test. Tomás León, senior vice president of marketing and Strategy at Equality Health, said that the demand was so tremendous that they had to begin turning people away.
“At some point, we had to cut it off because we didn’t have enough tests, and our staff and volunteers were being pushed to the limit because of the heat,” León told The Arizona Republic. They tested over 900 people throughout the day, hundreds more than they had planned.
The wait times at Saturday's testing blitz in Maryvale appear to be far longer than what has been reported at any other testing blitz in neighborhoods across Phoenix since they began in early May.
South- and west-side communities in Phoenix historically deprioritized
León said that institutional neglect of under-served communities and lack of bilingual, culturally-competent material and treatment motivated Equality Health to organize the blitz and is part of what drove the overwhelming turnout.
"There have not been many testing opportunities on the west side, particularly focused on reaching the under-served and Hispanic community," León said.
Maryvale, a neighborhood established in the 1950s, is more than 75% Hispanic, according to data from the city. Maryvale's median household income is below the city's median income, according to census data.
Many members of the community are essential service industry workers who had been disproportionately exposed to the virus even before businesses across the Valley began opening back up in May. Especially with the recent surge in cases, León said of the Maryvale community, “the need is there and they are very concerned.”
“Quite frankly, the resources haven’t been in this area and kudos to (Equality Health) for bringing it,” said state Rep. Lorenzo Sierra whose district includes part of Maryvale.
Sierra has worked together with seatmates to bring testing to the southwest Valley in neighborhoods like Tolleson. Most other blitzes Sierra has witnessed, however, have tested 100 to 200 people.
"When you get 1,000 it shows what the need is in the community and I think a lot of us have underestimated what that need is," Sierra said.
Without these blitzes, people in the area have had to travel far distances to receive testing or have not been tested at all.
Arizona state Sen. Mártin Quezada, who represents part of Maryvale and surrounding neighborhoods, said that the long wait times and sheer disarray people experienced at Saturday’s testing blitz is “emblematic of the whole failure of the governor to address this virus in a responsible way.”
“As it’s become more and more evident that the chances of people in low income and minority communities to get sick are higher than other communities, that’s when you start to see the response to (the virus) taper off,” Quezada told the Republic.
“It’s true of the Maryvale and South Phoenix community throughout the history of Phoenix, whenever our community is impacted negatively, the response is less urgent once there’s the realization that our community is going to be hit harder than other communities.”
Despite issues of lack of testing, the ZIP codes in which Maryvale is situated have some of the highest rates of confirmed infections in Phoenix.
To Quezada, these one-off testing blitzes and city-by-city edicts on masks are too little, too late.
“The state needed to be acting with a lot more urgency, and we haven’t done that at all,” he said. “We’re still at the bottom of the nation in terms of per capita testing.”
Arizona currently ranks 40th in the nation in testing according to ongoing research conducted by Johns Hopkins University.
The people who will face the worst of the consequences of mismanagement and inaction but who will receive the least attention and care are members of his district, “and they know it,” he said.
“This is a good hardworking community and the people deserve better than to be last on the circuit,” Sierra said.
Maryvale testing to continue next Saturday
Equality Health is planning another blitz next Saturday at Desert West Sports Complex, with changes to accommodate what they think will be equal demand. These include adding more lanes for registration and testing.
Sierra also suggested that Equality Health should have people fill out their paperwork in advance to streamline the process.
“Testing is the first step,” Quezada said, but it needs to be accompanied by public education, enforcement of mask requirements, and expansion of medical care for the most under-served communities.
León shared that Equality Health is in agreement that testing is only one part of the efforts to suppress the spread of COVID-19.
They also have been providing bilingual, culturally competent material to members of the community on the virus, symptoms and treatments; they also plan to reach out to every person who tests positive with follow-up information and treatment.
Along with these individual blitzes, Quezada said, "I would like to see the governor come out and say, 'Hey these are the ZIP codes … that are hardest hit, here is where we are going to focus our efforts, here is where we are going to get resources out.' ”
In other words, "An equitable distribution of resources and efforts to communities that need it most," Quezada said.
The City of Phoenix did not respond to The Arizona Republic for comment by publication.
Reach the reporter at emily.wilder@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @vv1lder.
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