Hispanic and black New Yorkers are dying at highest rates from coronavirus
By ERIN DURKIN
04/08/2020 12:55 PM EDT
Hispanic New Yorkers have been the hardest hit by coronavirus deaths in the city, dying at the highest rates of any racial group, new data from the city shows.
Black New Yorkers are also dying disproportionately from the virus, which has swept across the five boroughs but has been a particular scourge in working-class black and Latino communities.
Hispanic people make up 34 percent of the city’s deaths from Covid-19, compared with 29 percent of the population, according to the new data. African Americans comprise 28 percent of deaths, compared with 22 percent of the population.
“When I saw this, it made me very angry,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. “It’s sick. It’s troubling. It’s wrong.”
White and Asian New Yorkers, by contrast, have suffered fewer deaths compared with their share of the city’s population. White people make up 27 percent of deaths and 32 percent of the population, while Asians comprise 7 percent of deaths and 14 percent of the population.
Across the city, 3,602 people have died from the virus as of Wednesday morning. The number of confirmed cases has risen to 77,967.
The most deaths are happening among racial groups that have historically suffered more from chronic health conditions, and had less access to healthcare.
Health conditions like asthma, diabetes and heart disease put people at a higher risk of getting seriously ill or dying if they contract Covid-19.
“There are clear inequalities, clear disparities in how this disease is affecting the people of our city,” de Blasio said. “So many people struggle to get the healthcare they need, who didn’t have the money to afford the healthcare they deserved. So many people have lived with chronic healthcare conditions.”
Many black and Latino New Yorkers are service workers and frontline employees who have been unable to shelter at home and continued to go to work as the crisis has progressed.
Around the country, African Americans have been infected and killed by the coronavirus at disproportionately high rates. But in New York, Hispanic immigrant communities have also been particularly hard hit. Neighborhood data shows that Corona, Queens has the most coronavirus cases of any area in the city, with 1,659.
Language barriers may be preventing some Latinos from getting thorough information about the virus, officials said — and they worry undocumented immigrants are shying away from getting healthcare because of fear over their immigration status.
“The anti-immigrant rhetoric across this country, I think, has real implications in the health of our communities,” said Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, who added that concerns about new Trump administration rules making it hard for immigrants to get a green card if they have used public benefits may also be playing a role.
City Council Member Francisco Moya, who represents Corona and Elmhurst, said many residents there don't have health insurance and work in service industry jobs that can't be done from home.
"This disease is decimating black and Latino communities," he said. "As someone who lives in Corona, Queens, and represents Elmhurst Hospital, it’s been clear for weeks that we were ground zero for the U.S. outbreak."
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who had pushed the city to release data on the racial impact, said officials should go further and publish the total number of coronavirus cases by race.
"We need to know the racial breakdown in rates of testing and of positive confirmed cases to find and correct these clear failures," he said Wednesday."The coronavirus may not discriminate, but the response, or lack of response, clearly has."
Crowded housing conditions in low-income neighborhoods driven by high rents also appear to be contributing to the spread of the disease. “Multiple families may be living together in very small spaces,” said Dr. Mitchell Katz, head of the city public hospital system.
The racial data accounts for 63 percent of deaths in the city, because race has not been recorded for everyone who has died. Of fatalities where race is known, 521 Latinos, 428 African Americans, 424 white people and 112 Asians have died.
Hispanic people also have the highest death rate per 100,000 people, followed by black people. Hispanic people are dying at more than double the rate of white people, while the rate for black people is almost twice that for white people.
Many New Yorkers who die at home have not been counted in the official death toll, and de Blasio said those numbers would likely make the disparities even worse. The city has also been counting the dead differently depending on the agency.
"The whole question of who’s dying, how many people are dying from this disease is an open question," said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and an adviser to de Blasio on public health matters, during an interview on WNYC Wednesday. "Until this moment, and I think they’re going to fix it, the New York City medical examiner and the Department of Health have different ways of counting the deaths from coronavirus. The medical examiner, when they are receiving a person who is deceased, calls a Covid death if they tested positive or they are presumed to be positive because of symptoms. The health department says we’re only counting those who have confirmed coronavirus. That has to be straightened out because we have to have consistency among the city agencies."
The city now plans to conduct a multimillion dollar ad campaign to share information about Covid-19 targeted at the populations which have been affected the most, with ads in 14 languages.
Officials are also aiming to send health care workers into neighborhoods to educate people, but acknowledged that would be difficult because of the urgent need for health workers in hospitals, as well as social distancing rules.
https://www.politico.com/states/new-yor ... us-1273789 
