The staff of El Centro de Corazón health clinics knew that Covid-19’s strike would be more vicious in Houston’s East End, where many Latinos live on the economic edge.
When the first of the clinics’ employees reported symptoms in early 2020, the staff wept, said Dr. Kavon Young, medical director of El Centro’s four clinics.
They wept for their colleague and “they wept not only for themselves, but for their family members that were living in their houses,” Young said. “That was a huge moment for us, because the pandemic had finally hit home."
Many of the more than 100 employees of El Centro de Corazón were as vulnerable as the patients who would come in, contending with the same challenges as their clients, like staff members at other community clinics in the U.S. 
They live in the clinics' neighborhoods, in small homes or single-bedroom apartments, sometimes sharing with multiple family members. 
They have unreliable or no transportation, higher incidences of certain diseases and limited health care options. They don’t all have broadband access at home and some grapple with language barriers. 
Across the country, Latino clinics like El Centro de Corazón, a Federally Qualified Health Center, have acted as levees against the coronavirus, which has threatened from the start to devastate their communities.  
Early on in the pandemic, they knew they would have to find their own ways to inform their communities about the virus and treat them when they got sick, at the same time cutting through patients' fears of medical costs or of the government — ensuring that their populations weren't forgotten.
As the country has moved to massive vaccination hubs and online vaccination appointment systems, some Latino health clinics are calling on federal and state governments to use them more to reach vulnerable communities, in particular people of color and immigrant populations, and to stock them with resources to do so.
“Community health centers are perfect for these times, because we have been looking at the social determinants of health well before the pandemic,” Young said. 
The need to step up vaccinations while still trying to stop the spread of Covid-19 makes the clinics' role even more relevant.
Of the slightly more than half of the 62.5 million people who have received at least one vaccine dose, 65.5 percent were white, compared to just 8.5 percent who were Latino, according to demographic data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, said African Americans have been successful in using black churches for vaccinations but Latinos are less successful because the most vulnerable in the community are undocumented.
“We’re a trusted source in our communities,” said Dr. Viju Jacob, an assistant vice president for Urban Health Plan, a network of health centers in New York that serve 90,000 predominantly Latino patients in the South Bronx, Central Harlem, Corona and Queens. 
Urban Health Plan is one of the largest employers in many of the ZIP codes where it has clinics, “so that in itself has a built-in level of trust. Our employees essentially represent the community,” Jacob said.
El Centro de Corazón, Urban Health Plan and other similar clinics are generally nonprofits that charge on a sliding scale or not at all and take patients on Medicaid or Medicare.