Last week, we published an analysis of finding that several states have yet to break down their COVID-19 data by race and ethnicity. At least three states — Nevada, North Dakota, and Nebraska, and five U.s. territories that have yet to release any demographic information about the cases and the deaths they’ve reported so far.
But even the business reporting some demographic data aren’t do not have permission to drive the full picture. For both cases, and deaths, almost every state is missing varying amounts of race and ethnicity data — data that’s critical to understanding how communities are being affected by the new coronavirus.
According to our review of the data available, 18 states and the U.s. territories are not reporting information on the race and ethnicity of the people who have died of COVID-19.
The confirmed COVID-as many as 19 cases in the U. s. exceed 1 million, many states are releasing the racial and ethnic data on who is getting sick. But some, including much of the Great Plains and Mountain West, have not released racial and ethnic information on the killings. And the states that are reporting, in that data are generally only to service the number of characters known to be caused by COVID-19 in the official death count likely significantly underestimates the amount the pandemic”s true toll.
The gaps in reporting at the state level to make getting an accurate national picture of the all the more as a person. While the racial disparities in coronavirus infections-and deaths-are becoming clearer the states will release more as the date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not released yet any data on COVID-19 fatalities by race and ethnicity. The CDC’data on cases, includes the race and ethnicity information is less than one-half of all cases reported to the federal government.
Indeed, many states are releasing breakdowns of the COVID-as many as 19 cases are missing significant chunks of data. Of those that have released some demographic data on the cases, at least 18 states are missing information on more than 30 percent of the cases in their data for either race or ethnicity.
And because of the lack of uniform reporting guidelines, some states don’t even specify what percentage of their cases are the reporting of racial or ethnic information, making it a person-to-get-the-picture-full-of how many cases are missing.
In georgia, for example, which received nationwide scrutiny is the reopening of small businesses before experiencing a 14-day decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations, you have the race date is less than 70 percent of the cases statewide. African Americans make up about 32 percent of the state’s population, according to U.s. Census Bureau data, but represent almost half of the state’s coronavirus cases for which the patient”s race is known.
Similarly, the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, which together have more than 100,000 cases and nearly 7,000 deaths, are missing a racial and ethnic information in the 50 percent to 70 percent of their cases because of incomplete reporting from health care providers.
Some of the states hit by the hardest coronaviruses, including New York, New Jersey, and Texas — all states with large urban areas with huge populations of people of color, and are releasing the racial information-on-deaths-but not on the cases.
The data problem is particularly acute when it comes to the Latin and Hispanic Act. COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on the black Act have you gotten a decent amount of attentionbut the limited amount of data released by the states shows that the Hispanic and Latin populations also appear to be disproportionately hit by the pandemic in the some parts of the country. However, missing data and varying the race reporting guidelines that have made the man an accurate count of the cases in that community is almost impossible. Some states provide separate breakdowns of race and ethnicity, while others lump the Hispanic and Latin identities into the racial breakdown.
For example, California reports the racial and ethnic breakdown together under the following categories: Hispanic, white, Asian, African American/black multi-racial, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, and “other.”
In comparison, Louisiana-reports, the racial and ethnic breakdowns separately under the following categories for race: American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, black, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, white, and “other.” The categories for the state to use for ethnicity are Hispanic/Latin and non-Hispanic/Latino.
This inability for us to do the most basic function which is to aggregate data, is an example of our institutions in this nation, having lost their capacity to be of service to people who need them the most,” said Michael McAfee, chief executive officer of the Policy Linka national research and advocacy organization focused on racial equality. “This is not hard to do. The question is: Is there the will there to do it?”
