Author: Diana Kruzman

When Matuor Alier first started experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 in mid-October, he quickly took steps to isolate himself from his community in Fargo, a city on North Dakota’s eastern border with Minnesota.

Alier, a 32-year-old social worker who came to North Dakota in 2008 as a refugee from what is now South Sudan, was able to work from home while he was ill, quarantining in his home while enduring chills and fits of coughing. But the experience made him even more aware of how difficult dealing with COVID-19 was for other members of his community: North Dakota’s growing population of refugees and immigrants, particularly from Africa.

“When the pandemic hit in March, they weren’t getting the information,” Alier said. “They were not understanding what was going on.”

According to the latest data from the COVID Tracking Project, Black North Dakotans had the highest rate of COVID-19 cases relative to their population in the state, eclipsing even other vulnerable groups such as Native Americans. While the state does not release racial data for deaths from COVID-19, the infection rate is over 9,600 per 100,000 for Black people, compared to about 6,700 for people identifying as white, as seen in the chart below.

These numbers reflect what activists and government officials have seen in the state as the virus has devastated African immigrant communities. North Dakota has endured a wave of infections in the fall, and currently has the highest case rate in the nation, but immigrants are particularly vulnerable to the virus due to higher rates of poverty and language barriers that prevent them from getting information about COVID-19.

In response, nonprofit organizations and volunteer groups dedicated to helping immigrants and refugees in North Dakota have stepped up to provide groceries, safe spaces to quarantine and translation assistance for non-English speakers seeking information about COVID-19.

“They don’t speak the language, they don’t have anybody advocating for them,” said Clarissa C. Van Eps, president of the North Dakota chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. “We’re telling them that they have a safe space with us and telling them the things that we can do for them if needed.”

Nationwide, people of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to a range of factors, including poverty, essential worker status and pre-existing health conditions. But the racial disparity in COVID-19 infections in North Dakota reflects larger trends particular to the state, which has experienced rapid demographic change in recent years. Over the past decade, the population of North Dakotans identifying as a race other than white has grown from just under 10 percent to 13 percent.

The largest growth has been in the Black community, whose numbers have more than tripled since 2010, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The majority of this increase is driven by growing numbers of “New Americans” — a catch-all term for immigrants and refugees who have come to North Dakota seeking economic opportunity or political asylum. The percentage of foreign-born North Dakotans stood at 4.7 percent in 2018, up from just under 2 percent in 2000. While the state has significant populations of Asian immigrants, including Bhutanese refugees, the largest group identifies as Black, and includes immigrants from Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With a population of about 125,000, Fargo is North Dakota’s largest and most diverse city, and reflects many of these recent demographic trends. The city’s plentiful jobs in the manufacturing and healthcare industries, along with a relatively low cost of living, have attracted waves of immigrants, while North Dakota as a whole leads the country in refugee resettlement per capita.

But some of the very opportunities that pull New Americans to the region also make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, according to Hukun Dabar, executive director of the Afro-American Development Association of Fargo-Moorhead. Immigrants working manufacturing or retail jobs cannot work from home, while those in the healthcare industry spend more time in COVID-19 hotspots such as nursing homes and hospitals. Immigrant communities tend to be lower-income and less likely to own their own homes, while the state of North Dakota did not enact a rent moratorium during the pandemic.

“At the end of the month, the landlord wants the rent,” Dabar said. “They can’t stay home even one day from work, because they have kids to feed, they have rent to pay, they have bills to pay.”

Cultural and social factors heightened their vulnerability. Stigma against immigrants — who were sometimes blamed for spreading COVID-19, Dabar said — led some to avoid reporting their symptoms, while language barriers caused a general lack of information about the virus and its effects. Many immigrant families also live in large, multi-generational households where one infected person can spread the virus to multiple others, Dabar added.

To address these complex issues, nonprofit and volunteer groups have played a prominent role. Alier helped found the ESHARA Project — which stands for Ethnic Self Help Alliance for Refugee Assistance, and brings together seven community-based nonprofit organizations in the Fargo area — in 2016 as an employment assistance program for New Americans, and worked on pivoting the coalition to COVID-19 response in June. Throughout June and July, ESHARA coalition members helped nearly 300 people with rental assistance, grocery delivery services, and help getting tested for COVID-19 or filing for unemployment benefits.

Other groups have also stepped in to help, including the North Dakota chapter of the NAACP. The chapter, which was only created a few months ago in the wake of nationwide protests over racial justice and is still in the process of joining the national NAACP organization, has mustered volunteers and funds to distribute groceries and provide places to quarantine, according to Faith Shields-Dixon, the group’s vice president.

But it’s been difficult to see the disease ravage immigrant communities across the state, she noted.

“We’ve seen some loss of life — some of the pillars of the community have passed away from COVID,” Shields-Dixon said. “Everywhere people are dying from this disease. But we know that being able to provide those extra resources can lift the load off of them, and be able to assist them during this tragic time.”

Death data by race is unavailable in the state because the number of deaths among people of color is so small that releasing it would potentially allow individuals to be identified, a violation of health privacy regulations, said Grace Njau, an epidemiologist at the North Dakota Department of Health. But she said that despite the high rate of COVID-19 cases among New Americans, the rate of deaths for this population tends to be low because they are often younger and healthier than other groups.

At the same time, Njau said steps taken by the state to combat the virus can benefit all who are impacted by it. On November 14, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum implemented a statewide mask mandate and announced new restrictions on social gatherings for the first time since the start of the pandemic, complementing requirements that already existed in larger cities like Fargo and Bismarck. Njau said she sees this as a positive sign, and that the rate of new infections has already begun to drop.

“For now, I’m a little bit more optimistic in terms of our outlook,” Njau said. “But how long it lasts depends on how long we can keep up our masking and social distancing. If things hold at a steady state of where we’re at currently, I would say we’re heading in a positive direction.”

But even if cases drop, challenges will remain for New American communities in particular. Dabar said the state needs to provide more assistance to small business owners — many of whom are immigrants — facing losses due to COVID-19, while Alier added that children of immigrants tend to struggle with distance learning because their parents may not be able to afford the technology or help them if they don’t speak English.

“New Americans are taxpayers, they go to work every day, and they’re not people who always depend on benefits,” Dabar said. “So they need to see them as neighbors. They’re a big part of the state of North Dakota, because they’re not going anywhere.”

COVID-19 tears through African immigrant communities in North Dakota as nonprofits struggle to keep up

When Matuor Alier first started experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 in mid-October, he quickly took steps to isolate himself from his community in Fargo, a city on North Dakota’s eastern border with Minnesota.

Alier, a 32-year-old social worker who came to North Dakota in 2008 as a refugee from what is now South Sudan, was able to work from home while he was ill, quarantining in his home while enduring chills and fits of coughing. But the experience made him even more aware of how difficult dealing with COVID-19 was for other members of his community: North Dakota’s growing population of refugees and immigrants, particularly from Africa.

“When the pandemic hit in March, they weren’t getting the information,” Alier said. “They were not understanding what was going on.”

According to the latest data from the COVID Tracking Project, Black North Dakotans had the highest rate of COVID-19 cases relative to their population in the state, eclipsing even other vulnerable groups such as Native Americans. While the state does not release racial data for deaths from COVID-19, the infection rate is over 9,000 per 100,000 for Black people, compared to about 7,200 for people identifying as white, as seen in the chart below.

These numbers reflect what activists and government officials have seen in the state as the virus has devastated African immigrant communities. North Dakota has endured a wave of infections in the fall, and currently has the highest case rate in the nation, but immigrants are particularly vulnerable to the virus due to higher rates of poverty and language barriers that prevent them from getting information about COVID-19.

In response, nonprofit organizations and volunteer groups dedicated to helping immigrants and refugees in North Dakota have stepped up to provide groceries, safe spaces to quarantine and translation assistance for non-English speakers seeking information about COVID-19.

“They don’t speak the language, they don’t have anybody advocating for them,” said Clarissa C. Van Eps, president of the North Dakota chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. “We’re telling them that they have a safe space with us and telling them the things that we can do for them if needed.”

Nationwide, people of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to a range of factors, including poverty, essential worker status and pre-existing health conditions. But the racial disparity in COVID-19 infections in North Dakota reflects larger trends particular to the state, which has experienced rapid demographic change in recent years. Over the past decade, the population of North Dakotans identifying as a race other than white has grown from just under 10 percent to 13 percent. The largest growth has been in the Black community, whose numbers have more than tripled since 2010, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The majority of this increase is driven by growing numbers of “New Americans” — a catch-all term for immigrants and refugees who have come to North Dakota seeking economic opportunity or political asylum. The percentage of foreign-born North Dakotans stood at 4.7 percent in 2018, up from just under 2 percent in 2000. While the state has significant populations of Asian immigrants, including Bhutanese refugees, the largest group identifies as Black, and includes immigrants from Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With a population of about 125,000, Fargo is North Dakota’s largest and most diverse city, and reflects many of these recent demographic trends. The city’s plentiful jobs in the manufacturing and healthcare industries, along with a relatively low cost of living, have attracted waves of immigrants, while North Dakota as a whole leads the country in refugee resettlement per capita.

But some of the very opportunities that pull New Americans to the region also make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, according to Hukun Dabar, executive director of the Afro-American Development Association of Fargo-Moorhead. Immigrants working manufacturing or retail jobs cannot work from home, while those in the healthcare industry spend more time in COVID-19 hotspots such as nursing homes and hospitals. Immigrant communities tend to be lower-income and less likely to own their own homes, while the state of North Dakota did not enact a rent moratorium during the pandemic.

“At the end of the month, the landlord wants the rent,” Dabar said. “They can’t stay home even one day from work, because they have kids to feed, they have rent to pay, they have bills to pay.”

Cultural and social factors heightened their vulnerability. Stigma against immigrants — who were sometimes blamed for spreading COVID-19, Dabar said — led some to avoid reporting their symptoms, while language barriers caused a general lack of information about the virus and its effects. Many immigrant families also live in large, multi-generational households where one infected person can spread the virus to multiple others, Dabar added.

To address these complex issues, nonprofit and volunteer groups have played a prominent role. Alier helped found the ESHARA Project — which stands for Ethnic Self Help Alliance for Refugee Assistance, and brings together seven community-based nonprofit organizations in the Fargo area — in 2016 as an employment assistance program for New Americans, and worked on pivoting the coalition to COVID-19 response in June. Throughout June and July, ESHARA coalition members helped nearly 300 people with rental assistance, grocery delivery services, and help getting tested for COVID-19 or filing for unemployment benefits.

Other groups have also stepped in to help, including the North Dakota chapter of the NAACP. The chapter, which was only created a few months ago in the wake of nationwide protests over racial justice and is still in the process of joining the national NAACP organization, has mustered volunteers and funds to distribute groceries and provide places to quarantine, according to Faith Shields-Dixon, the group’s vice president.

But it’s been difficult to see the disease ravage immigrant communities across the state, she noted.

“We’ve seen some loss of life — some of the pillars of the community have passed away from COVID,” Shields-Dixon said. “Everywhere people are dying from this disease. But we know that being able to provide those extra resources can lift the load off of them, and be able to assist them during this tragic time.”

Death data by race is unavailable in the state because the number of deaths among people of color is so small that releasing it would potentially allow individuals to be identified, a violation of health privacy regulations, said Grace Njau, an epidemiologist at the North Dakota Department of Health. But she said that despite the high rate of COVID-19 cases among New Americans, the rate of deaths for this population tends to be low because they are often younger and healthier than other groups.

At the same time, Njau said steps taken by the state to combat the virus can benefit all who are impacted by it. On November 14, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum implemented a statewide mask mandate and announced new restrictions on social gatherings for the first time since the start of the pandemic, complementing requirements that already existed in larger cities like Fargo and Bismarck. Njau said she sees this as a positive sign, and that the rate of new infections has already begun to drop.

“For now, I’m a little bit more optimistic in terms of our outlook,” Njau said. “But how long it lasts depends on how long we can keep up our masking and social distancing. If things hold at a steady state of where we’re at currently, I would say we’re heading in a positive direction.”

But even if cases drop, challenges will remain for New American communities in particular. Dabar said the state needs to provide more assistance to small business owners — many of whom are immigrants — facing losses due to COVID-19, while Alier added that children of immigrants tend to struggle with distance learning because their parents may not be able to afford the technology or help them if they don’t speak English.

“New Americans are taxpayers, they go to work every day, and they’re not people who always depend on benefits,” Dabar said. “So they need to see them as neighbors. They’re a big part of the state of North Dakota, because they’re not going anywhere.”

According to the latest data from the COVID Tracking Project, Black North Dakotans had the highest rate of COVID-19 cases relative to their population in the state, eclipsing even other vulnerable groups including Native Americans. While the state does not release racial data for deaths from COVID-19, the infection rate is over 9,000 per 100,000 for Black people, compared to about 7,200 for people identifying as white, as seen in the chart below.

These numbers reflect what activists and government officials have seen in the state as the virus has devastated African immigrant communities. North Dakota has endured a wave of infections in the fall, and currently has the highest case rate in the nation, but immigrants are particularly vulnerable to the virus due to higher rates of poverty and language barriers that prevent them from getting information about COVID-19.

When Matuor Alier first started experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 in mid-October, he quickly took steps to isolate himself from his community in Fargo, a city on North Dakota’s eastern border with Minnesota. Alier, a 32-year-old social worker, quarantined in his home while enduring chills and fits of coughing; his wife experienced dizziness and headaches, and both of them grew concerned when their three-month-old child caught the virus, too.

“That was the scary part,” Alier said in an interview a month later, after he and his family had recovered. “The way that he breathed and the way that he coughed the entire night, when his body was aching.”

Alier, who came to North Dakota in 2008 as a refugee from what is now South Sudan, says he benefited from having a job that allowed him to work from home while he was ill. But the family was also able to receive help from a coalition of local nonprofit organizations dedicated to one purpose: helping North Dakota’s growing population of refugees and immigrants, particularly from Africa, survive the pandemic.

According to the latest data from the COVID Tracking Project, Black North Dakotans had the highest rate of COVID-19 cases relative to their population in the state, eclipsing even other vulnerable groups including Native Americans. While the state does not release racial data for deaths from COVID-19, the infection rate is over 9,000 per 100,000 for Black people, compared to about 7,200 for people identifying as white.

The virus has devastated African immigrant communities in the state, according to activists and government officials, as the state overall has endured a wave of infections in the fall, and currently has the highest case rate in the nation. In response, groups like the ESHARA Project — which stands for Ethnic Self Help Alliance for Refugee Assistance, and brings together seven community-based nonprofit organizations in the Fargo area — have stepped up to provide groceries, safe spaces to quarantine and translation assistance for non-English speakers seeking information about COVID-19.

“They don’t speak the language, they don’t have anybody advocating for them,” said Clarissa C. Van Eps, president of the North Dakota chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. “We’re telling them that they have a safe space with us and telling them the things that we can do for them if needed.”

Nationwide, people of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to a range of factors, including poverty, essential worker status and pre-existing health conditions. But the racial disparity in COVID-19 infections in North Dakota reflects larger trends particular to the state, which has experienced rapid demographic change in recent years. Over the past decade, the population of North Dakotans identifying as a race other than white has grown from just under 10 percent to 13 percent. The largest growth has been in the Black community, whose numbers have more than tripled since 2010, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The majority of this increase is driven by growing numbers of “New Americans” — a catch-all term for immigrants and refugees who have come to North Dakota seeking economic opportunity or political asylum. The percentage of foreign-born North Dakotans stood at 4.7 percent in 2018, up from just under 2 percent in 2000. While the state has significant populations of Asian immigrants, including Bhutanese refugees, the largest group identifies as Black, and includes immigrants from Somalia, Sudan, Liberia, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With a population of about 125,000, Fargo is North Dakota’s largest and most diverse city, and reflects many of these recent demographic trends. The city’s plentiful jobs in the manufacturing and healthcare industries, along with a relatively low cost of living, have attracted waves of immigrants, while North Dakota as a whole leads the country in refugee resettlement per capita.

But some of the very opportunities that pull New Americans to the region also make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, according to Hukun Dabar, executive director of the Afro-American Development Association of Fargo-Moorhead, which is part of ESHARA. Immigrants working manufacturing or retail jobs cannot work from home, while those in the healthcare industry spend more time in COVID-19 hotspots such as nursing homes and hospitals. Immigrant communities tend to be lower-income and less likely to own their own homes, while the state of North Dakota did not enact a rent moratorium during the pandemic.

“At the end of the month, the landlord wants the rent,” Dabar said. “They can’t stay home even one day from work, because they have kids to feed, they have rent to pay, they have bills to pay.”

Cultural and social factors heightened their vulnerability. Stigma against immigrants — who were sometimes blamed for spreading COVID-19, Dabar said — led some to avoid reporting their symptoms, while language barriers caused a general lack of information about the virus and its effects. Many immigrant families also live in large, multi-generational households where one infected person can spread the virus to multiple others, Dabar added.

Alier helped found ESHARA in 2016 as an employment assistance program for New Americans, and helped pivot the coalition to COVID-19 response in June. Throughout June and July, ESHARA coalition members helped nearly 300 people with rental assistance, grocery delivery services, and help getting tested for COVID-19 or filing for unemployment benefits.

Other groups have also stepped in to help, including the North Dakota chapter of the NAACP. The chapter, which was only created a few months ago in the wake of nationwide protests over racial justice and is still in the process of joining the national NAACP organization, has mustered volunteers and funds to distribute groceries and provide places to quarantine, according to Faith Shields-Dixon, the group’s vice president.

But it’s been difficult to see the disease ravage immigrant communities across the state, she noted.

“We’ve seen some loss of life — some of the pillars of the community have passed away from COVID,” Shields-Dixon said. “Everywhere people are dying from this disease. But we know that being able to provide those extra resources can lift the load off of them, and be able to assist them during this tragic time for them.”

Death data by race is unavailable in the state because the number of deaths among people of color is so small that releasing it would potentially allow individuals to be identified, a violation of health privacy regulations, said Grace Njau, an epidemiologist at the North Dakota Department of Health. But she said that despite the high rate of COVID-19 cases among New Americans, the rate of deaths for this population tends to be low because they are often younger and healthier than other groups.

At the same time, Njau said steps taken by the state to combat the virus can benefit all who are impacted by it. On November 14, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum implemented a statewide mask mandate and announced new restrictions on social gatherings for the first time since the start of the pandemic, complementing requirements that already existed in larger cities like Fargo and Bismarck. Njau said she sees this as a positive sign, and that the rate of new infections has already begun to drop.

“For now, I’m a little bit more optimistic in terms of our outlook,” Njau said. “But how long it lasts depends on how long we can keep up our masking and social distancing. If things hold at a steady state of where we’re at currently, I would say we’re heading in the positive direction.”

But even if cases drop, challenges will remain for New American communities in particular. Dabar said the state needs to provide more assistance to small business owners — many of whom are immigrants — facing losses due to COVID-19, while Alier added that children of immigrants tend to struggle with distance learning because their parents may not be able to afford the technology or help them if they don’t speak English.

“New Americans are taxpayers, they go to work every day, and they’re not people who always depend on benefits,” Dabar said. “So they need to see them as neighbors. They’re a big part of the state of North Dakota, because they’re not going anywhere.”

In recent years, North Dakota’s Black population has grown rapidly; Black residents accounted for roughly 0.6 percent of the North Dakota population before 2010, but by 2018, they made up nearly 3 percent. Much of this growth can be attributed to immigration from Africa, spurred by refugees seeking asylum from countries such as Somalia, South Sudan and Liberia. African immigrant communities have coalesced in major metropolitan centers such as Bismarck, Grand Forks and Fargo-Moorhead, with community organizations such as the Afro American Development Association stepping in to provide services that are often lacking from the state government.

At the same time, the CRDT data from the COVID Tracing Project show that the rate of COVID cases (per 100,000) for Black people in North Dakota is almost twice as high as for white people, even exceeding other vulnerable categories such as Native Americans. Although the data do not provide a breakdown between COVID’s impacts on African Americans and recent African immigrants to North Dakota, several underlying conditions could contribute to disparate impacts from COVID-19 on both groups.

African Americans in North Dakota are disproportionately likely to be low-income and have pre-existing health problems. Immigrant communities, meanwhile, are heavily represented in North Dakota’s healthcare industry, particularly in long-term care facilities that are also extremely vulnerable to COVID; language barriers and a lack of access to the internet can also make some communities difficult to reach with warnings about the virus, while large multigenerational homes can quickly spread the disease.

This story will explore this disparity and its impacts on Black and African American communities in North Dakota. By speaking to the North Dakota chapter of the NAACP, I will explore how the growing African American community has been hit by COVID, including speaking to a member of the community who actually experienced the disease. I will also focus on the Afro American Development Association in Fargo, which has worked with the city government to develop a program to help African immigrants with quarantining and has translated important COVID-19 related information into their relevant languages.

Finally, I will round out my reporting by speaking to public health employees and contact tracers from the North Dakota Department of Health, who can explain some of the demographic breakdown that they’ve seen as well as what actions are being taken on the state level to combat this disparity. This story will fill a crucial gap in information about North Dakota’s Black population and the specific difficulties that COVID poses to immigrant communities.

In recent years, North Dakota’s Black population has grown rapidly, particularly fueled by immigrants from African countries. At the same time, the CRDT data show that the rate of COVID cases (per 100,000) for Black people in North Dakota is almost twice as high as for white people. This story will explore this disparity and the factors that lead one group to be more likely to experience the disease than another, from work opportunities and poverty to pre-existing health conditions. Moreover, North Dakora does not release death rates by race, so I would want to anecdotally explore whether Black people in North Dakota are also more likely to die of COVID than other groups.

Possible Sources:

• North Dakota Health Department
• North Dakota NAACP
• University of North Dakota Medical School
• Afro American Development Association
• Somali Community Development of North Dakota
• Sudanese Community of Fargo Moorhead

Estimated length: 1,200 words.

Although Arizonans who identify as Hispanic/Latino make up 31.74% of the population, they make up 43.58% of COVID cases across the state, a disproportionate number. However, that percentage goes back down to 33.85% for COVID deaths, begging the question of whether Hispanic/Latino Arizonans have better COVID outcomes (i.e. if they get sick, they’re less likely to die from the disease), and if so, why. This story will explore outcomes for Hispanic/Latino people across Arizona and why this group is both more likely to get sick and less likely to die.

Potential Sources:

• Arizona Department of Health
• Nonprofit group Chicanos Por La Causa
• The University of Arizona Health Sciences – Hispanic Center of Excellence
• Arizona Latin-American Medical Association

Estimated Length: 1,200 words.

In Arizona, Native Americans are experiencing COVID – and dying from it – at much higher rates than other racial or ethnic groups. The rate of COVID cases for people identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native is more than three times the rate of people identifying as white, relative to population. And the death rate is much higher – about four times that of white Arizonans. This story will explore this disparity, with a particular focus on the staggering death rates and the pre-existing social and health conditions that lead to poorer outcomes for Native Americans in Arizona.

Potential Sources: 

• Navajo Nation tribal government
• Arizona Department of Health
• Aid organizations such as the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund
• Experts from the Center for American Indian Health at Johns Hopkins

Estimated Length: 1,200 words.

Before working with the COVID Tracking Project, I didn’t realize how much painstaking work went into collecting the kind of data that I often take for granted. When reading news stories about COVID-19 — or, for that matter, about any topic that incorporates data — I’ve never really questioned how data is collected and analyzed to determine trends. But crucial concepts such as the idea of a certain area seeing a “spike” in COVID cases, and the way this is reported in the news media and subsequently responded to by governments and the public, have their basis in the human work of gathering information day by day and comparing it to values from previous days or other locations.

These numbers come to the public (and journalists who write stories using them) ready-made, but the work put in every day at the COVID Tracking Project illustrates how much thought and effort has to go into getting them there. I came away from my shift feeling extremely impressed and awed, not only at the complexity of the task but at the fact that so many people volunteer their time to help. In these truly bleak and difficult times, I was heartened by the way people came together to make this happen.

At the same time, I was struck by the necessity of the project in the first place — that journalists are doing this because the federal government cannot be trusted to accurately report COVID information (or had refused to do so in the past). Even now, after the CDC began reporting state-by-state figures, they often don’t match up with what the COVID Tracking Project found, for unknown reasons. This is a clear demonstration of the importance of journalism as the fourth pillar of democracy and a necessary check on government (especially a government that is openly hostile to silence), and which may try to mislead the public about the reality of COVID-19 infections if not challenged.

Working my shift also allowed me to apply some of the concepts we previously discussed in class, including the limitations of data collection. We could only put in what the state health departments themselves were reporting, and many categories were left blank if a state did not report antibody tests, for example. Furthermore, those state health departments were themselves limited by county health departments, which were limited by who came in to take a test. Thinking this way made the prospect of accurately counting COVID-19 infections and deaths in the US seem even more daunting, but the project at least did what it could with the information it had available.