New York Times finds racial and ethnic disparities in CDC data obtained via FOIA request

New US federal data released by the CDC in response to freedom of information requests show striking racial and ethnic disparities in all parts of the country in who gets infected and hospitalised with coronavirus. A survey of 640,000 infections in nearly 1,000 US counties found that Latino and African-American US residents are three times as likely to become infected and twice as likely to die of the virus as white people living the same places. In areas of Arizona and several other places, Native Americans were also far more likely to become infected than white people. Asian people showed less disparity, though they were still 1.3 times as likely to become infected as their white neighbours. Experts blame circumstances such as front-line jobs they must leave home to perform and that pay less, the greater likelihood that they live in more cramped and multi-generational homes that make it harder to isolate from infected family members, and the lesser access to healthy food options and health care.

Publication: New York Times

Writers: Richard A. Oppel Jr, Robert Gebeloff, KK Rebecca Lai, Will Wright, and Mitch Smith