The Battle for Waterloo

The coronavirus crept through Waterloo, Iowa, quietly at first.

In an apartment on the west side of town, a Karenni refugee from Myanmar woke up one morning in April gasping for air. His wife tried to help, but the man, who butchered hog carcasses for a living, was suddenly too weak to get out of bed.

A few miles away, Congolese immigrants, short of breath and struggling with coughing fits, cocooned themselves in blankets and leaned over steaming pots of lemon, ginger and garlic.

Outside the weather was getting warmer, but the streets were eerily empty, almost like when the ocean pulls out all the water before pounding a wave onto the shore. In the lull, Dr. Sharon Duclos, the co-medical director of the Peoples Community Health Clinic, waited anxiously, hoping that the deadly new virus would somehow spare her city.

Then it hit. Overnight, the number of cases in urgent care doubled, then tripled and quadrupled. The clinic’s interpreters, fielding calls in multiple languages, couldn’t keep up. Unable to get through, families drove to the clinic, lining up on the sidewalk as the smell of fast food drifted from the Hardee’s next door.

Read more: https://features.propublica.org/waterloo-meatpacking/as-covid-19-ravaged-this-iowa-city-officials-discovered-meatpacking-executives-were-the-ones-in-charge/