COVID rough on young Latinos
Throughout the pandemic, the coronavirus has disproportionately carved a path through the nation's Latino neighborhoods, as it has in African American, Native American and Pacific Islander communities. The death rate in those communities of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, is at least double that of whites and Asian Americans, federal data shows.
Even more stunning: the deadly efficiency with which the virus has targeted Latinos in their 30s and 40s. In California, which has the nation's largest Hispanic population, state figures show as of Wednesday, Latinos ages 35 to 49 died of the virus at more than 51⁄2 times the rate of white people the same age.
The gap was even wider a few months earlier: In December, Latinos in the prime of life were nearly seven times more likely to die than their white peers, according to the COVID Tracking Project, an independent group that collects case, death and hospitalization data.
Put another way: 35to-49-year-old Latinos represent 41.5 percent of people in that age range in California but account for about 74 percent of deaths.
The staggering loss of life at younger ages, plus higher overall mortality rates, is projected to have caused Latinos' life expectancy nationally to plummet by about three years during 2020, according to a peer-reviewed study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February. The authors of that study report that Latinos' reduction in life expectancy was more than three times the loss experienced by the white population.
"A younger age at death represents more lost years of life," said Theresa Andrasfay, the study's coauthor and a postdoctoral scholar studying health disparities at the University of Southern California. “This shows just how this pandemic is operating a little bit differently than other causes of death.”
The findings proved all the more stunning because for years researchers had recognized that Latinos in the United States lived longer than white people, despite social, political, economic and environmental factors that typically erode health and shorten lives.