“Let’s not pretend there’s nothing we can do,” said Dr. Mary Bassett, New York City’s former health commissioner and now director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. .

New York finally began some of this work by setting up pop-up coronavirus testing centers in recent days in minority neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. But more can be done.

In many black and Hispanic communities, trust in government is low and the information given to the residents has often been confusing and come too late. To serve these Americans now, state and local governments will have to meet those in need where they are. That could mean directing more medical workers to reach out to vulnerable people, a serious challenge that calls for turning to trusted nonprofits, churches and advocacy groups and unions to help identify those in need.

Interstate cooperation would help, too. California and Oregon have sent ventilators and other needed medical equipment to New York and other hard-hit states. Expanding telemedicine services for at-risk populations is another useful strategy.

And everything possible needs to be done to tear down the wall between private and public medical care. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, should ensure that private hospitals and medical groups like CityMD make their substantial resources truly available for any patient who needs them, not just any patient who can pay. Though New York City’s public hospitals serve a majority of low-income people and those without health insurance, they are overwhelmed and cannot meet the need on their own. The private hospitals must step up wherever they can to assume more of the burden.

Another way to save lives is to provide alternative housing for workers and others who live in large households and have no way to isolate themselves if they get sick. In the Elmhurst area of Queens, for instance, many immigrant workers live in crowded boardinghouses where the virus is spreading rapidly. Families in New York City and other areas of the country where the cost of housing is high are already doubled or tripled up in small apartments, with several generations in one household. People in these usually vibrant neighborhoods are getting sick and bringing home the virus to their parents and grandparents.