Cecilia Hernandez-Cromwell

Cecilia Hernandez-Cromwell will be taking a deeper look at how the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the Oklahoma City County Health Department and the Tulsa Health Department dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and Hispanic community, including some of the early missteps and course corrections. As her outlet is the only Spanish-language TV news outlet in the state, these stories should get wide attention. Hernandez-Cromwell is very familiar and connected with Telemundo’s Spanish-speaking audience in Oklahoma, which are largely first-generation from Mexico and Guatemala with relatively few multigenerational families. An example of topics she will explore include how the state is currently collecting COVID data online, as the questionnaire has not yet been translated to Spanish. Therefore, Spanish-speaking people have to call and ask for a translator in order fill out any questionnaires related to being tested for COVID-19. She will compare how other states have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic for non-English speakers and what learnings exist for Oklahoma going forward.