HARRISONBURG – U.S. Sen. Mark Warner met with leaders in area nonprofit, education and health organizations, as well as elected officials, to find out more about inequalities in health care and the impact of COVID-19 on minority communities during a visit to the valley.

The two-term Democratic senator and former Virginia governor on Thursday heard from and spoke with Mayor Deanna Reed, City Councilmen Chris Jones and Sal Romero, Harrisonburg City Public Schools Superintendent Michael Richards and other stakeholders in the health and human services sectors.

“We also know that COVID has not fallen evenly across our communities,” Warner said.

Warner said around 440,000 Black-owned businesses closed nationwide, and roughly 28% to 32% of Latino businesses have shut their doors.

Hispanic or Latino residents made up more than one-third, 37%, of COVID-19 cases in the city and 32% of cases in the county as of April 28, according to a presentation by Dr. Laura Kornegay, director of the Central Shenandoah Health District, at a City Council meeting at the time.

Nearly 21% of Harrisonburg residents and over 7% of residents of Rockingham County are Hispanic or Latino, according to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Virginia Department of Health did not respond to an inquiry from the Daily News-Record for updated data on COVID-19 cases by race Thursday afternoon.

Access to capital for minority business owners was also an issue Warner addressed at the roundtable.

“This is also translated into ongoing economic disparity,” Warner said of how the situation has only gotten worse for working and middle-class families during the pandemic.

Warner said he was hopeful the bipartisan Jobs and Neighborhood Investment Act he has worked on with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., would be included in the next legislation Congress passes to address COVID-19.

He said the act uses programs that already exist and were used to help large- and mid-sized banks during the Great Recession.

“If it was good enough to bail out Wall Street, shouldn’t we use exactly the same tool to help minority communities, underserved communities in the midst of the COVID crisis?” he said.

Other members of the roundtable said language barriers are a major obstacle in fighting the pandemic and providing support for economically impacted families in Harrisonburg and Rockingham. Others said language barriers also deepen divides in access to health care or weak ties to financial institutions for support.

Romero, who spoke also as the director of equity and community engagement of Harrisonburg City Public Schools, also said many city residents are essential workers and have not stopped working even during the pandemic, though they may still face dire challenges and trouble finding child care.

“We have to make sure when the next stimulus check comes we have to consider every single person in our community, regardless of documented or undocumented status,” Romero said.

Consumer spending drives about 70% of the U.S. economy.

Richards spoke about the need for more rapid testing and said six days to wait for results of a COVID-19 test presents major challenges to the school system.

Since school for most Harrisonburg students has been moved online, others at the roundtable broached the subject of working families struggling to find or afford safe child care during the pandemic.

Warner said a potential solution to help bridge the gap may come in the form of local universities offering course credits to their students for tutoring younger city and county students.

Richards also spoke about ensuring equal vaccine access for children, no matter economic or racial background, when there is a vaccine available, and how remote learning presents a problem for students who do not have access to the internet or computers.

Harrisonburg City Public Schools is deploying mobile Wi-Fi hot spots for students to access the internet for school come fall.

Broadband is a “critical, essential service” during the pandemic and over a fifth of Virginia does not have access to the service, Warner said.

He also lamented the impasses in Congress that has led to unemployment support dropping off a “cliff” as the extra $600 of support ran out at the end of July.

“We need to come to a deal,” Warner said. “There are too many lives in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County that you guys deal with every day that are waiting for this needed additional assistance.”

Between March and April, unemployment in the Harrisonburg metro area more than tripled to 10.2%, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unemployment somewhat recovered to 8.8% in May and 7.8% in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, many of the jobs workers have lost across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic have been lost for good, according to Warner.

“That’s the reality,” he said.

And the government must come together to do something, he added.

“We’ve got to act,” Warner said.