Black And Brown Neighborhoods Are Facing Disproportionate Hospitalizations
Update August 17, 2020, 2:29 p.m. PST
A study shows that Black and Brown communities in several states have disproportionate hospitalizations.
According to the study from JAMA Internal Medicine found that hospitalizations in 12 states showed disproportionate numbers of minority hospitalizations.
“The share of the hospitalizations of White patients was substantially smaller vs. their share of the population in all 12 states,” authors of the study found.
Original: The novel coronavirus known as Covid-19 is still spreading in the U.S. and claiming lives. New York is the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S. and the U.S. is the country with the most infections and deaths. At the time that this post was written, more than 1,583,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the U.S. and more than 95,000 people have died. This means that about 1 in every 3 people infected with Covid-19 lives in the U.S.
Covid-19 is devastating the U.S. with more than 1.5 million people testing positive for the deadly virus.
The U.S. is the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic with more deaths and infections than any other in the country by far. The second closest country in terms of infections is Russia with more than 326,000 infections. A new study found that had the U.S. taken safety measures one week earlier, 36,000 lives could have been saved.
Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents one of the hardest-hit districts in the U.S. Her district is a majority Black and Latino district in New York has seen a devastating wave of Covid-19 infections and death. Economic inequalities have exacerbated the issues of Covid-19 and it is clear that it is having a deadly consequence.
Part of the problem is the kind of work and living conditions in these communities.
Latino and Black neighborhoods in New York are seeing infections and death rates disproportionate to the population within the state. As states begin to reopen, many Latinos are further put at risk. According to the LA Times, a large percentage of essential workers are people of color meaning that they have been putting themselves at risk during the pandemic. Now, more at being told to go to work while the virus continues to spread in the U.S.
According to data from New York, the rate of death for Latinos is 259.2 out of 100,000. This is second to Black residents experiencing 265 deaths per 100,000. For reference, whites in New York are experiencing a death rate of 160 per 100,000.
The trend of Latino communities facing a significant wave of Covid-19 is reflected across the country. According to The New York Times, Latinos in Iowa make up 20 percent of Covid-19 infections while only representing 6 percent of the population and in Washington state Latinos are 13 percent of the population but 31 percent of Covid-19 cases.
In late March, AOC called out President Trump’s lack of a response as setting the country up for thousands of preventable deaths.
A scientific study examined the Covid-19 response in the U.S. and how it could have gone differently. According to the study, had the Trump administration led and implemented social distancing measures one week sooner, 36,000 lives could have been spared.
