LYNN — Community health organizations have been teaming up to fight Lynn’s stubbornly high rates of COVID-19.
The North Shore Medical Center has partnered with the Lynn Community Health Center, the city of Lynn and Mass General Brigham to launch “Keep Cases Down,” an education initiative focused on Lynn and several other struggling cities throughout the Commonwealth. Lynn remains a hot spot for COVID-19, with 578 active cases as of Sept. 22.
The initiative includes a series of PSA videos in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, educating communities about mask etiquette and the importance of social distancing. The videos are narrated by community members including Lynn’s Carlos Cappas, who works as the Chief Behavioral Health Specialist at the Lynn Community Health Center. These videos are accompanied by educational texts sent through the Patient Gateway system along with digital, social media and billboard ads.
“We want to teach people to social distance, wear a mask, wash their hands, and avoid large gatherings,” said North Shore Medical Center’s community benefits manager Tina McLoughlin.
These ads are targeted toward several high-risk communities, including Lynn, Chelsea, Revere, Lawrence, Hyde Park, Mattapan, Mission Hill, Roxbury, Dorchester, East Boston, and Everett. The initiative began about a month ago in response to an uptick of COVID-19 cases in these areas.
“We’re trying to get as many people as possible informed about the disease,” said Cindy Steger-Wilson, director of Marketing and Communications at the Lynn Community Health Center. “And to encourage testing.”
In addition, the North Shore Medical Center and the Lynn Community Health Center will continue providing test kits to Lynn residents. As of today, NSMC, with the help of community partners, has already distributed 40,000 tests to residents. Within the next few weeks they plan to distribute 15,000 additional tests, testing 300 residents each day.
Testing is available at the Lynn Community Health Center at 8 Buffum Street, regardless of whether people have been experiencing symptoms, whether they are a patient at the LCHC and whether or not they have health insurance.
“We offer testing to anyone who wants a test,” said Steger-Wilson. A full list of their testing hours is available on the Lynn Community Health Center website.
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected].
