Blacks And Latinos Twice As Likely To Die From COVID-19 Than Whites in N.Y.C.

• A recent report said that coronavirus is twice as deadly for black and Latino people compared with whites in New York City.
• The great gap of death tolls among races, the report said, is due to continuing “economic inequalities” and dissimilarity in access to health care.
• Another factor is that Latino and African American have no choice but to show up for work, subjecting themselves further to the risks of getting infected by COVID-19.

Reports from The New York Times recently said that the dreaded coronavirus (COVID-19) is killing more blacks and Latinos in New York. A preliminary data on racial breakdowns of coronavirus cases and deaths, which was released by the New York local state government, stated that the fatality rate among black and Latino coronavirus patients were twice the figures compared with white people.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio explained that this incident is due to the city state’s “longstanding and persistent economic inequalities in access to health care.”

“There are clear inequalities, clear disparities in how this disease is affecting the people of our city. The truth is that in so many ways the negative effects of coronavirus — the pain it’s causing, the death it’s causing — tracks with other profound health care disparities that we have seen for years and decades,” de Blasio said.

Based on the preliminary study conducted by the N.Y.C., the death rate for Hispanics were about 22 per 100,000 individuals and blacks had around 20 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the rate for white people is 10 per 100,000 and Asians are at 8 per 100,000.

De Blasio aso added that at least “100 to 200” individuals are presumed to be virus victims prior to their deaths at home, although they were not able to get tested, and were left out of the virus death tally.

There are 18,804,000 people living in New York.

The study also pointed out that Latinos represent about 34 percent of patients who have died of the coronavirus which make up the 29 percent of the total population rate; while Bblack people represent 28 percent fatalities and make up 22 percent of the population.

“This used to be a very, very rare thing in New York City. Obviously it’s jumped up, and the only thing that changes is Covid-19,” the City Mayor told The New York Times.

The report also said that New York’s figure on racial breakdowns of COVID-19 cases and fatalities were lesser than other U.S. states, particularly in Chicago where it is recorded that 72 percent of people who have died from the coronavirus are blacks, despite the fact that they only made up a “little less than a third of the population”.

New York City governor Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, explained that the gap could be attributed to poorer community without any free access to health care, leaving them untreated with chronic health problems and making them “more likely to die” from the dreaded virus.

He also said that black and Hispanic people may have also been assigned on the frontlines of workers who are at high risk from contracting the virus.

“Are more public workers Latino and African-American? Who don’t have a choice, frankly, but to go out there every day and drive the bus and drive the train and show up for work and wind up subjecting themselves to, in this case, the virus. Whereas many other people who had the option just absented themselves,” said the governor.

Based on a Scott M. Stringer study, 75 percent of frontline workers in New York City, including grocery, clerks, bus and train operators, janitors, and child care staff, are “minorities”; over 60 percent of the population who work as cleaners are Latinos, and over 40 percent of transit operators or employees are blacks.

As of this posting, there were 106,863 confirmed cases of New Yorkers falling ill from coronavirus; with 7,349 fatalities and 9,736 recoveries.

Both officials, de Blasio and Cuomo, promised to conduct mass testing among minorities and low-income families.