Race and Coronavirus in Washington DC

Based on the DC government’s official data for coronavirus in the District, we can see that cases and deaths are falling disproportionately on the non-white community.

The proportions of whites, blacks, and Asians in the DC population are 47%, 45% and 4%.

But the coronavirus death rate per 100k of those populations is dramatically different: 1.6, .7.6, and 6.6.

Per population:

  • African-Americans are dying at nearly 5 times the rate of whites in DC (7.6/1.6 deaths per 100k population).

  • Asian-Americans are dying at nearly 4 times the rate of whites (6.6/1.6).

Per COVID-19 case, 10% of Asian-Americans with COVID-19 have died (2 deaths per 20 cases), compared to 4% of blacks, and 2% of whites.

[Note that Latinos are left out because I couldn’t figure out the Districts use of “whites” vs “non-hispanic whites” for their data set.]

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Joel Selanikiocoronavirus, COVID-19, Washington DC, DC, public health, epidemiologyComment