Day 86: Race and Ethnicity

Though the world, the US, and New York State are all approaching some very large, round, case numbers, today Massachusetts had its smallest uptick since we began ticking up in earnest in early March: only 3%. It is a Sunday and one apparently never knows what's up at Quest (especially since the state stopped breaking out testing by laboratory), but it's promising nonetheless.

Many statistics have gone by the wayside in the course of the state's reporting, and others have appeared to replace them. The state is quite concerned about race and ethnicity, although these are hard things to track and the results still lean quite heavily to "Unknown/Missing". (Race and ethnicity are unknown for the majority of both total cases and deaths, and for a full 40% of hospitalized cases.)

The Worcester Telegram reports that "Latinos" make up 30% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Worcester County, while being only 11% of the population there, and blacks are 10% of patients but only 5% of residents. The Telegram doesn't speculate about why, but elsewhere this phenomenon has been partly attributed to a disparity in pre-existing conditions. For example, PlagueBlog readers may recall that obesity is a major risk factor for hospitalization with COVID-19; Massachusetts obesity statistics from 2011 showed that "Black adults were 43% more likely to be obese, and Hispanic adults were 40% more likely to be obese than White adults."

California has observed an even more disturbing trend of young blacks and Latinos (that is, 18–49-year-olds) dying at higher rates not only than whites and Asians of the same age, but also than older people (65+) of their own race or ethnicity, respectively. Some added risk comes from pre-existing conditions:

Blacks have been found to have higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and smoking-related deaths than whites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They have a lower life expectancy and are more likely to not see a doctor because of the cost, CDC data show.

Latinos have a lower death rate overall than whites, but a 50% higher death rate from diabetes along with higher rates of poorly controlled high blood pressure and obesity, according to the CDC.

The article speculates that the reason younger blacks and Latinos are more affected than the old is that they are more likely to live in crowded conditions, to still be working in the service sector during the pandemic, and to distrust the healthcare system or lack health care coverage. (This argument may apply to Massachusetts as well.) The article mentions in passing that Pacific Islanders are the worst off of the groups considered, but without any comment as to why.