Coronavirus racial disparities are worse than we thought
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Black and Hispanic/Latino Americans have coronavirus mortality rates as much as 10x higher than white Americans' when age is taken into account, according to a new analysis by the Brookings Institution.
Why it matters: We've known that minorities are being hit harder by the coronavirus, but we didn't know it was this bad.
Between the lines: White Americans tend to be older than black and Latino Americans, putting a higher percentage of white people in older and thus more vulnerable age brackets. That's skewed the overall death rate by race.
- When unadjusted for age, black people have a death rate twice that for whites, and Hispanics' death rate is about the same as whites'.
- But when age is taken into account, the death rate for black Americans is 3.6 times that of white Americans, and Hispanics' is 2.5 times higher.
The bottom line: "Race gaps in vulnerability to Covid-19 highlight the accumulated, intersecting inequities facing Americans of color (but especially Black people) in jobs, housing, education, criminal justice – and in health," the authors write.
Go deeper: Why the coronavirus pandemic is hitting minorities harder
