STOCKTON, California — Stockton Filipino advocacy organization Little Manila Rising is holding a free virtual town hall meeting to educate the community about COVID-19 and more.
"What our role is, we're just trying to bridge that communication and trying to bring as much education and try to inform the population," said Kevin Sunga, one of the group's COVID team outreach coordinators.
The 28-year-old Sunga knows too well the impact of contracting COVID-19. In 2020, he became infected but recovered a week later.
"You experience severe chills. 50 blankets can't even, I know it's overexaggerating, but that's what it felt like at that time," Sunga said.
The virtual town hall by the Stockton non-profit will cover COVID variants, information about boosters, the flu and other pandemic-related issues.
New to Stockton, Koji Lewis is also part of the Filipino outreach COVID team. He hopes a virtual town hall meeting Friday will help break through cultural barriers, misinformation and more.
"Decrease in mental health and supplies and resources. Everything that COVID kind of permeates in everyday life all matters when you want to be on top of your health," said Lewis.
Headlining the two-hour event is Dr. Freddie RayRay, a critical care pharmacist now practicing at an East Bay hospital.
Raised in Stockton, he's witnessed the effects of COVID-19 first hand.
"What I'm seeing is a variance between young people who might not feel they are at risk of getting severe COVID infection, and people who might be a lot older who haven't gotten COVID so far, so they don't want to get vaccinated at this point," Dr. RayRay said.
He stressed the need to get vaccinated, boosted and follow the CDC guidelines.
As the omicron variant surges, he recommended replacing your cloth mask with a more protective KN-95 surgical-type mask.
Bottom line, Little Manila Rising hopes to lower growing cases of COVID-19.
"So, we're hoping to give some very valuable updates as well as being more transparent about testing sites," Sunga said.
The event is free and runs from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday. You can pre-register for the event HERE by 3 p.m. Friday for a chance to win a gift card. However, pre-registration is not necessary to attend the event.
You will be able to find a Zoom link on the group's Instagram page by going to @littlemanilastockton.
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