Professor overcomes loss to craft COVID-19 student brochures

Published 3:00 am Thursday, May 6, 2021

NEW YORK — When the coronavirus pandemic struck New York City, LaGuardia Community College professor Lucia Fuentes assigned students in her honors biology class to compile all the information they could find about COVID-19.

The result? An online multilingual brochure based on research from peer-reviewed journals, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that has become a valuable resource for immigrants in the United States and their families abroad.

“Science is complicated and we have to make it more accessible,” Fuentes said. “This is why … I thought it would be a good thing for the students, and that it would be a contribution.”

Nothing stopped the project — not even the death of Fuentes’ husband on March 25, 2020, due to complications from COVID-19, or her own bout with the disease.

In her grief, she remains committed to her students and determined to prevent others from getting sick.

“I wasn’t going to drop my students, and I knew they were going through tons of really horrible stuff,” she said. “I talked to some of them afterwards … and they really appreciated that.”

— Associated Press

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