Via @nytimes:
New federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture. Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country — in urban, suburban and rural areas — and cuts across every age group.
The new data provides detailed characteristics of 640,000 coronavirus infections detected in nearly 1,000 U.S. counties. It shows that Black and Latino people are 3 times as likely to contract the coronavirus than their white neighbors — and twice as likely to die.
Experts point to circumstances that make Black and Latino people more likely than white people to be exposed to the virus, including the fact that many work in jobs that can't be done from home. Among the 249 U.S. counties with at least 5,000 Black residents for which we obtained detailed data, the infection rate for African-American residents is higher than the rate for white residents in all but 14 of those counties. And for the 206 counties with at least 5,000 Latino residents for which we have detailed data, 178 have higher coronavirus infection rates for Latino residents than for white residents.
When comparing age groups, the disparities are even more extreme. For example, Latino people between the ages of 40 and 59 have been infected at 5 times the rate of white people in the same age group. Of Latino people who died, more than 25% were younger than 60. Among white people who died, only 6% were that young.
