Just as the data shows that people’s experiences with COVID-19 vary from one part of the country to another, the pandemic has also affected demographic groups differently.
Months of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) underscore these disparities. For example, a highly-cited CDC report from April examined data on a sample of 580 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and found that only 45% of the individuals for whom demographic data was available were white, though white people made up 59% of the surrounding community. At the same time, 33% of hospitalized patients in the sample were Black, compared to 18% in the community, and 8% were Hispanic, compared to 14% in the community. The report suggested that Blacks are overrepresented among hospitalized patients.
