Asian Americans in Bay Area have uneven virus rates

Santa Clara residents of Filipino and Vietnamese descent are seeing more cases.

SAN FRANCISCO — Filipino Americans and Vietnamese Americans are being hit harder by the coronavirus than other Asian Americans in Silicon Valley.

The rate of new coronavirus cases among residents of Vietnamese and Filipino descent is rising faster than those among other Asian groups, Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody said recently.

Vietnamese Americans make up 19% of the population of Asian Americans in Santa Clara County, yet they accounted for 28% of coronavirus cases between June 1 and Dec. 3, 2020, according to a presentation Cody gave at a Board of Supervisors meeting in December.

Filipino Americans, who represent 13% of the county’s Asian American population, accounted for 21% of cases during the same period.

By contrast, Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Korean Americans and Japanese Americans were underrepresented in their share of coronavirus cases among Asian Americans.

Among all racial and ethnic groups, Latinos have the highest per capita case rate in Santa Clara County, with more than 4,000 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in the late spring, summer and fall — more than six times the rate of white residents.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the county also have experienced a disproportionately high rate, at nearly 3,000 cases per 100,000 residents, quadruple the rate of white residents.

Black residents experienced more than double the rate of white residents, with nearly 1,600 cases per 100,000 residents. The rate for white residents is nearly 700 cases per 100,000.

Asian Americans as a group in the county were observed to have nearly 800 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents.