A complicating factor in combating covid hot spots: heat

Last summer, just as cases of Covid-19 began to surge in Southern California, so did the heat.

In the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, that created a dilemma. Boyle Heights is full of old, brick apartment buildings cooled with window units. On hot days before the coronavirus, its predominantly Latino residents would cluster with multiple generations of family members in the one room that had air conditioning, or seek out cool public spaces like shopping malls or movie theaters to escape the heat.

But the pandemic closed many of those places. Local governments kept a few public cooling centers open during the near-triple-digit heat wave, including one adjacent to Boyle Heights. But residents were fearful: They had been told for months to stay outside to avoid the spread of the virus, but now they were being told to go inside to avoid becoming ill from the heat.

“You saw seniors just outside the building playing cards, socializing, doing their thing, but they wouldn’t go 10 to 20 feet away indoors where they could get access to air conditioning,” said Emily Montanez, planning section chief with Los Angeles County’s Office of Emergency Management. “They were leery. The county’s health order was stay at home, you’re safer at home. And here we are telling them to come indoors.”...