Clues about how races are affected

Partial state data show half are people of color

Roughly half of the people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in California are African American, Latino or Asian, according to data released Wednesday by state public health officials who have come under pressure to provide more details about who is infected and dying in the pandemic.

The state’s demographic profile is based on only 37% — or about 6,300 — of all of California’s confirmed cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday in his daily briefing. That’s because this was the only demographic information available as of Wednesday, thus

Newsom said he was hesitant to draw conclusions from the partial information.

Nonetheless, California released the data as concerns arose nationally over the disproportionate impact of COVID19 on African Americans.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, urged citizens Wednesday to continue socialdistancing efforts and directed a plea specifically to an African American population that has been hard hit by the coronavirus.

U.S. reports have shown that black people are more likely to be infected by and die from the coronavirus than others. The problem is especially acute in Louisiana, Illinois and Michigan; in Louisiana, 70% of people who died were black, but African Americans make up only a third of the population.

California’s data do not show people of color having higher rates of illness or being more likely to die than white people, but public health experts noted that many parts of the state with large black and Latino communities have not not yet reported demographic information.

“I would love to say we don’t have the inequities,” said Denise Herd, associate director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, which has been monitoring the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on East Bay communities. “But from what we know of existing health disparities, I would be surprised if we didn’t see some inequities in terms of who’s getting sick and who’s dying. We need more data on this.”

Newsom said he was wary of making the information public because it is so incomplete, and he doesn’t want people to believe that there are no race and ethnic disparities in the California outbreak.

“Based upon the 37% of the data that’s in, we are not seeing that,” he said. “But I caution you, the data is limited . ... Nothing is more frustrating than the disparities that manifest in relationship to public heath. Those issues preceded this crisis and they persist in this crisis.”

Of the 6,306 Californians with the coronavirus for whom demographic information was made available on Wednesday, 37% are white (whites make up 37% of the state’s population); 30% are Latino (Latinos make up 39% of the state’s population); 14% are Asian or Asian American (Asians/Asian Americans make up 15% of the state’s population) and 6% are black (African Americans make up 6% of state’s population). The demographic breakdowns were similar for 172 people who have died and for whom information was released.

Those percents roughly match the demographics of the state. But in Los Angeles County, which released some demographic information earlier in the week, black people have been disproportionately affected by COVID19 — they account for about 17% of deaths but only 9% of the population.

San Francisco provided demographic data on Tuesday for about twothirds of 676 cases; the rates of infection closely matched the race and ethnic breakdowns in the city. San Francisco has not released demographic data on people who died, but with only 10 deaths reported in the city so far that information wouldn’t be statistically useful anyway, infectious disease experts said.

Meanwhile, no other Bay Area counties — including Alameda County, which has a large African American population — have provided demographic data.

The Bay Area is doing much better than other parts of the country at slowing down the regional outbreak, or flattening the curve, in large part due to early orders for people to shelter in place, said Kirsten BibbinsDomingo, vice dean for Population Health & Health Equity at UCSF.

“But I think what lies beneath the curve is disproportionate impact, and we have to be able to understand that,” BibbinsDomingo said. “We need data in order to act.”

Like other epidemiologists studying local outbreaks of the coronavirus, BibbinsDomingo wondered if testing shortfalls in California were disproportionately affecting communities of color. Testing has been extremely limited due to supply shortages and other issues, and people of color may have even less access than others, she said.

BibbinsDomingo said she expected from the start of the U.S. outbreak that “there would be uneven impacts from this virus.” People of color already are known to have higher rates of certain chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart, lung and kidney disease. That puts them at greater risk of serious illness and death from COVID19.

In many communities, people of color may also be more likely to work in jobs that keep them out in public while others shelter at home, BibbinsDomingo said. That would put them at greater risk of infection. They may be more likely to live in close quarters to others, such as large apartment buildings, also increasing their exposure to the virus, public health experts said.

“There are lots of socioeconomic factors that may make African Americans and others maybe more susceptible to illness,” said Steven Goodman, a Stanford epidemiologist. “It’s hard right now to tease out who is infected. But the first step is recognizing there is a difference.”

Many California county health officers have said they’re eager to release more demographic data, but it’s been challenging to collect the information due to the chaotic nature of the outbreak, and especially with testing being in such short supply. In some areas where commercial laboratories are providing much of the testing, demographic data may not be collected for some patients.

But public health experts said it’s critical that the information be gathered and made available — and not just for better protecting communities that may be disproportionately affected. In order to end the coronavirus outbreak, the spread of disease needs to be slowed down and stopped in all communities, BibbinsDomingo said.

“In a time of pandemic, we are all interrelated,” she said. “We’ll never get our pandemic under control unless we understand how to do it in our most marginalized communities.” San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Matt Kawahara contributed to this

report.