COVID-19 and race in Minnesota: a tale of two viruses
July 19, 2020
Viruses may be colorblind, but the more we understand COVID-19, the worse it seems to get for Black, Hispanic and Native American Minnesotans.
Federal data has always suggested minorities were overrepresented among those who got the illness, but that overrepresentation is far worse than previously imagined.
By late June, Centers for Disease Control data had shown that Blacks made up 13% of the country's population and 22% of its COVID-19 cases, while Latin Americans made up 18% of the population and 34% of all COVID-19 cases.
White people are overrepresented among the elderly, however. Since COVID-19 primarily takes the lives of the elderly, that has distorted the true COVID-19 death rate by race.