Name: Here’s where black and brown Virginians are being hardest hit by COVID-19
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Here’s where black and brown Virginians are being hardest hit by COVID-19

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AdvertisementBy The Virginian-PilotMay 16, 2020 at 11:55 amGov. Ralph Northam has started opening parts of Virginia’s economy against fears that people of color will be hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic — a concern that is backed by the state’s own testing data.A Virginian-Pilot analysis of COVID-19 data released with location information for the first time last week shows that ZIP codes with high concentrations of people of color have higher rates of infection compared with whiter ZIP codes throughout the commonwealth. That’s consistent with previously released state data showing people of color make up a disproportionate amount of the COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state.Advertisement“Racial health disparities aren’t new. It didn’t start with COVID. It’s not going to end with COVID,” said Dr. Ebony Hilton, a professor who specializes in critical care at the University of Virginia. “Literally, African-Americans have higher death rates for eight of the 13 leading causes of death.”The 23-member Virginia Legislative Black Caucus on Wednesday urged Northam not to reopen the state because black people would bear the brunt of the disease’s spread. They told the governor that minority communities make up “a significant percentage” of essential workers in the state.AdvertisementThe Pilot compared the state’s testing and infection numbers by ZIP code with federal demographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau and found that people who live in neighborhoods made up largely of black, Latino and Asian people are far more likely to contract COVID-19 than those who live in more white neighborhoods.Health experts have said for weeks that people of color — for whom inequities are compounded by the coronavirus pandemic — will face the brunt of the crisis. There are many reasons for that, but perhaps the most obvious is that many low-wage workers who are carrying out essential work — which brings them into contact with nearly everyone — are not white.And COVID-19 isn’t just infecting people of color at worrying rates. Hilton said the disease is also much more likely to kill them because the effects of the disease are made worse by existing inequities, such as a lack of access to fresh produce, proximity to industrial sites and racist public policies that have made life overall unhealthier for people who aren’t white.The Pilot’s analysis divides the ZIP codes into three groupings based on population — some ZIP codes only have a handful of people, others have more than 50,000. Each grouping includes about a third of the state’s roughly 8.5 million population. In general, people are nearly twice as likely to have tested positive for COVID-19 if they live in ZIP codes where people of color make up more of the population compared with the state.“What you’ve found is a way to actually measure the impact of institutional racism,” said Jon Liss, co-executive director for the advocacy group New Virginia Majority. “You’ve got almost a numerical measure of the index of ongoing racial oppression in this state.”But it’s important to note the state’s publicly available testing data . It has come under question because up until Thursday, it was conflating two tests, one which detects the virus and determines whether someone is currently infected with COVID-19 and another which tests for antibodies to determine whether someone was infected with the disease previously.AdvertisementCritics argue that mixing the numbers leads to deceitfully optimistic projections. The Pilot only examined where the disease has been found and the percentage of tests that yielded positive results, comparing it to the state figures available.Experts like Hilton, along with lawmakers and civil rights advocates, have urged government officials to think more carefully about reopening the state and to allocate more resources to communities of color to tamp down on the spread of the virus. They also want more reliable, more comprehensive and more frequently updated statistics from the Virginia Department of Health.“It took a long time to even start getting that demographic data,” said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, whose city has the highest concentration of people of color in the region. “It’s frightening.”They aren’t convinced state officials have done enough to ensure essential workers are getting adequate personal protective equipment and enough space to avoid contamination. They worry the governor is bowing to public pressure to reopen businesses, forcing the most vulnerable Virginians to shoulder the heaviest burden of his economic revival efforts.For instance, said Beatriz Amberman of the Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations, many workers picking fields, packing meat and staffing kitchens through the pandemic struggle with English, but many government officials across Virginia aren’t offering information in any other language. That means those workers are being left behind on critical information about COVID-19, from how to prevent its spread to how to get tested.AdvertisementIn Virginia Beach alone, nearly 13% of the population speaks a language other than English at home, according to the most recently available statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Throughout the commonwealth, that group makes up an even bigger share at 16%.“It’s unfortunate that some groups have lifted up their voices pressuring for things that are going to be very drastic for communities of color,” Amberman said. “When our communities are suffering, we have to be very cautious.”And in order to practice that empathy, experts and advocates say, the state needs to share more pandemic data.DailyStart your morning in-the-know with the day's top stories. &gt; ______To examine how the coronavirus is affecting communities of color, The Virginian-Pilot examined state testing data available May 13 by ZIP code.Generally, such analyses are done by census block, but state officials have not released the data in that form.AdvertisementZIP code populations vary wildly and their use in examining populations is limited. To account for this, The Pilot broke up the ZIP codes into three sections, each representing one-third of the state’s 8.5 million people.The state withheld the actual number of positive test results in a ZIP code if there were only one to four cases in that area. To account for this, the Pilot used the average of 2.5 cases in these areas. The least populous of the three zip code sections has 720 zip codes, the second-most populous has 100 and the most populous has 58.The Pilot then compared each ZIP code against state averages for testing, positive cases and the percentage of tests coming back positive — and whether that ZIP code had more or fewer people of color than the state average.As shown in the data visualizations above, no matter the size of the zip code, people are more likely to have contracted the virus if they live in a zip code with more people of color than the state average compared with people who live in a zip code that is more white than the state average. 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AdvertisementBy The Virginian-PilotMay 16, 2020 at 11:55 amGov. Ralph Northam has started opening parts of Virginia’s economy against fears that people of color will be hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic — a concern that is backed by the state’s own testing data.A Virginian-Pilot analysis of COVID-19 data released with location information for the first time last week shows that ZIP codes with high concentrations of people of color have higher rates of infection compared with whiter ZIP codes throughout the commonwealth. That’s consistent with previously released state data showing...

Here’s where black and brown Virginians are being hardest hit by COVID-19

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