Background: As the world puts its resources together in fighting the COVID -19 pandemic, it has become increasingly clear that the disease has not affected everyone equally. Publicly shared information on the racial and ethnic patterns of COVID-19 so far paints an alarming portrait. African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native American minorities have a disproportionately higher number of cases and deaths as a direct consequence of COVID-19.Our goal here is to analyze racial disparities in Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the United States of America and discuss possible reasons behind this inequality.
Methods: We obtained estimated case and mortality counts of African-American, Caucasian, Native American, and Hispanic individuals with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection through November 25, 2020, from publicly available official data on state departments of health websites. We calculated race-specific fractions as the percentage of the total population and analyzed the reasons behind this disparity.
Results: The incidence rates of COVID-19 were higher among African Americans and Latinos than their representation in total population in 26 states and 38 states. A similar observation was also reported for New York City. On November 11, 2020, the percentage of deaths reported among African Americans was disproportionately higher than their represented share in the population in 19 out of 40 states. It was reported that 19.8% of COVID-19 deaths in the USA were African American, even though black people make up 13.4% of the USA population. Moreover, the percentage of deaths reported among American Indians was disproportionately higher than their represented share in the population in 18 out of 29 states.
Conclusions: It is abundantly clear from the data that historically disadvantaged groups like African-Americans and Latinos are represented disproportionately higher, not only in the total number of cases but also total deaths. Higher incidence of co-morbidities, Institutional racism and systemic inequities, living in multigenerational households, overrepresentation in jobs requiring frontline work and public contact including food processing industries with minimal ability to socially distance or telecommute, incarceration and lack of preventive care may all have been contributing factors. A strong case can be made for the collection and reporting of COVID-19 cases and outcomes stratified by race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, and community health status in all states. The granular racial and ethnic data will help us better understand the full extent of the pandemic, ensure equitable access to testing, treatment, inpatient care and vaccines as well as other resources in the present. It will also inform future emergency preparedness and response.
