Since the start of COVID-19, thousands of Angelenos have faced health and financial crises. During this time, residents began to see the privilege difference between the wealthier classes versus the lower-class families. 

Many of the lower-income families were forced to return to work and put their lives at risk for the sake of their families. In contrast, wealthier and upper-middle-class families have had the privilege to work from home or had substantial advantages to tackle the pandemic head-on.

Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive stay-at-home order in the state of California on March 19, 2020. Since then, 39 million people have been forced to quarantine and remain at home. However, even with regulations and other precautions urged to the general public, many of these safety measures have been ignored. As of April 20, California has 3,620,301 confirmed cases of COVID-19, resulting in 59,804 deaths, according to the Official California State Government Website.

Graciela Colorado, a student at CSUN, was one of the many people who joined thousands of underprivileged families in Los Angeles who had been affected by the virus.

In early January 2021, Colorado contracted the virus at work and infected her mother and father. She recalled trying to remain safe, trying to social distance as much as she could while taking safety precautions, but found that it was difficult to do so.

“I feel like I definitely needed to go back to work. I remember saying, ‘yeah I need to go back to work.’ I needed to go back to work. I had bills to pay. I had school to pay. It’s kind of a necessity for me,” she said.

During the pandemic, Colorado and her family tried to stay home as much as they could. However, due to their lack of resources, they could not afford a drop in income. Ultimately, her household put their lives at risk and returned to work.

Colorado’s employer allowed her to return to work but only if she continued to test negative for COVID-19. This would often take days of planning, loss of work hours, and days of waiting to hear her results, which would, in turn, make her lose money to contribute to her household. 

“There's a site around my house [in Pacoima], but there was never an available time for me. So I found myself having to go to the Dodger Stadium, but the line wraps around the stadium twice,” Colorado said. “It was really hard to get tested there, but I feel like that’s what I needed to do because of my job.”

“People who have the necessity to work, they lose those days where they have to get tested and wait for those results. It’s not an easy process.”

Dodger Stadium opened as a COVID-19 testing site in May 2020 and served more than 1 million people. At the end of January 2021, it halted testing and became a vaccination distributor. However, due to high capacity, it became a central hub for testing and people had to wait hours for testing.
Colorado felt the financial and privilege differences from wealthier households and even from well-known social media influencers.

“There is an inequality with testing and vaccines,” Colorado said. “There are even influencers and Youtubers who would get quick access to testing kits. People could have these things delivered to their house.” 

Colorado first saw the inequalities and special treatment for people when she was watching Youtuber Nikita Dragun and saw all the access she had to testing kits.

"She had so much access to those [testing] kits. And those kits would literally get delivered to her house," Colorado said. "Her friends would get kits and it was so easy."

On January 31st, 2021, Nikita “Dragun” Nguyen”, a social media influencer, held a massive birthday bash to celebrate her 25th birthday. Videos would eventually surface which displayed Tana Mongeau, Patrick Starrrr, Larray and other social media influencers, violating CDC regulations in Los Angeles.

Dragun posted on her Instagram story that all her guests were tested upon arrival. However, many followers and viewers argued about the class divide and privilege that these celebrities have over others. 

In this instance, the ability for Dragun to offer and supply rapid tests to her friends created a bigger division between the rich and underprivileged.

Similarly, many celebrities, such as David Dobrik, have shown their wealth and status through YouTube videos. Unintentionally, flaunting rapid COVID tests was the new status symbol among these high-paid social influencers. 

In his recent video titled “I BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE!! (2021)” at 3 minutes 52 seconds, there was a quick clip of all his friends and workers receiving a rapid test to enter his vlog studio.

The reality is not everyone in Los Angeles is a famous influencer. The rest of the Angeleno population had to schedule an appointment a few days prior in order to get tested. Even with an appointment, one had to set aside a few hours of their day to stand along with hundreds of Angelenos as each waited their turn.

Silvia Olmedo, a junior at CSUN, found herself and her family infected by the virus after a surge in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday. With the city facing a spiking demand, she recalled following vibrant orange traffic cones for three and a half hours as they wrapped through Stadium Way guiding vehicles up Dodger Stadium. 

Her body was washed with stress as she struggled to allocate the safest living situation after being notified for testing positive. She was stuck with three options: to quarantine at her apartment near campus, her parent’s house or her boyfriend’s house. All places she had resided within the week span of being exposed to the virus. 

Olmedo emphasized the complex domino effect of being infected. It traced back to her contact at Thanksgiving dinner with her older sister who had been around her mother in law, who was exposed to the virus at work by her co-worker who knowingly continued to work while being positive for COVID-19.

Less than one-in-five Black workers and about one-in-six Hispanic workers are able to work from home according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute.  

For some, staying at home is a privilege. The essential co-worker who initiated the domino effect was an undocumented immigrant and a single mother who was faced with the choice of going to work and risk further contagion or stay home and risk starvation.

The social determinants of health in Olmedo’s case is very common among many Latino communities. Factors of discrimination, healthcare access, occupation, income gaps and housing all factor into an increased risk of COVID-19 affecting minority groups, as stated in a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Though the number of new infections and death rates have slowly decreased in recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on racial and ethnic minority groups across Los Angeles County. Long-standing systemic health and social inequities put many populations that are most vulnerable at an increased risk of getting sick and dying. The barriers within social determinants of health must be removed to ensure health equity and equal access to resources that enable communities to achieve physical and mental health.