COVID-19 disparity among racial and ethnic minorities in the US: A cross sectional analysis

Abstract

Aim To analyze racial disparities in Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the United States of America and discuss possible reasons behind this inequality. Subject and methods We obtained estimated case counts of African-American, Caucasian, Native American, Asian and Hispanic individuals with coronavirus disease (COVID-19)infection through May 5, 2020, from publicly available data on state departments of health websites. We calculated race-specific fractions as the percentage of the total population and analyzed the reasons behind this disparity. Results The incident rates of COVID-19 were higher among African Americans and among Latinos disproportionately higher than their representation in 14 states and 9 states, respectively. A similar observation was also reported for New York city. The percentage of deaths reported among African Americans was disproportionately higher than their represented share in the population in 23 out of 35 states. It was reported that 22.4% of COVID-19 deaths in the USA were African American, even though black people make up 13.4% of the USA population. Conclusions The analysis shows the disparity of coronavirus disease outcomes by ethnicity and race. Additional research is needed to determine the factors behind this inequality.

Characterization of COVID‐19 disease in pediatric oncology patients: The New York‐New Jersey regional experience

“…Published literature on COVID-19 supports that these patients are at a higher risk. [14][15][16] The majority of children were between 10 In our cohort, 16.95% of tested pediatric oncology patients were positive for SARS-CoV-2, which is higher than the positivity rates amongst general pediatric patients and rates reported by the initial pediatric oncology reports (∼11%) from New York City. While this study provides important information on SARS-CoV-2 infection in these patients, there are several limitations.…”

“…Patients of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity and male gender were a majority in this cohort, but it is difficult to comment on whether this is truly reflective of disease impact or is purely a reflection of institutions’ general population, because data on the overall demographics of the patient population at these institutions were not collected. Published literature on COVID‐19 supports that these patients are at a higher risk 14‐16 . The majority of children were between 10 and 21 years of age, and a significant proportion of older children developed moderate to severe disease as compared to their younger counterparts.…”

High levels of immunosuppression are related to unfavourable outcomes in hospitalised patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19: first results of ReumaCoV Brasil registry

“…Another limitation is related to main endpoints, including hospitalisation, need of mechanical ventilation and death, because they could not be adjusted for potential bias, such as access to healthcare systems, availability of hospital beds, strategies to mitigate the community viral transmission, heterogeneous expertise of medical team. 49 50 Physicians’ beliefs on the risk of poor outcome in IMRD patients, especially those under immunosuppression, could have driven decision making, such as the need of ICU and medications given earlier. However, it is also important to consider that some patients enrolled in our registry had active and severe underlying IMRD.…”

Clinical characteristics of asymptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19 patients in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

“…In addition, the case fatality rate had varied and likely related to the presence of comorbidities [ 8 , 17 ]. In a recent study, there was a disparity in the death rates where 22.4% of COVID-19 deaths in the USA were among African Americans who constitute 13.4% of the USA population [ 33 ]. This is an interesting observation and deserves further evaluation in this part of the world.…”