Greater Cleveland Congregations Launch COVID-19 Testing Program

CLEVELAND — The Greater Cleveland Congregations is launching a campaign to test thousands of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County residents for COVID-19. The group is also calling on pharmacy chains to better serve at-risk communities.

“Our community is in dire need of support to overcome the negative economic, emotional and physical effects of COVID-19,” Rev. James Quincy said in a statement. “We are working to deliver critical support.”

The congregations recently protested chain pharmacies lack of testing sites in Cleveland. Communities at-risk are under-served, and residents are frequently forced to drive to outer suburbs for testing, protesters said, according to ideastream.

The Greater Cleveland Congregations were supported by Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple during the protests.

"Our clergy and several Fairmount Temple members participated today in a virtual demonstration with GCC - Greater Cleveland Congregations - fighting structural racism in the testing for COVID-19 sites of major pharmacies," Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple said on social media.

The Greater Cleveland Congregations recently launched their own plan to increase testing in Cleveland and other at-risk areas. The campaign, called the Color of Health Initiative, will focus on testing Black residents and other at-risk groups, the congregations said. Eighteen congregations have been recruited to serve as free testing sites.

“There is an intersecting point between where race, poverty and this virus meet and it is ground zero for the worst of this pandemic,”Rev. Jawanza Karriem Colvin said. “We aim to meet it head-on.”

The Greater Cleveland Congregations is also conducting a survey of member congregations and the surrounding community as research for organizing people, "to ensure public and private resources are directed toward the individuals and families most adversely affected by the virus and the socio-economic impact on households."

“Much of the world has demonstrated that the resources and expertise exist to not simply slow the virus, but suppress it,” Rev. Ronald Maxwell said. “We must act together now to ensure that those resources are brought to bear within communities facing the greatest threat.”

Black Ohioans have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, according to a report from the COVID-19 Minority Health Strike Force. While Black Ohioans only make up 14 percent of Ohio's population, they account for 25 percent of COVID-19 cases.

The strike force's report suggests making testing more available to at-risk and under-served communities.