As national rates of hospitalizations, deaths and positive cases of the coronavirus spike, CDC datashows Americans of color who contract the virus are more likely to end up in the hospital.
The hospitalization rate overall for Hispanic or Latino COVID-19 patients is about 4.2 times higher than white patients. For American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Black patients, they are roughly 4 times more likely to be hospitalized than white patients.
Patients between the ages of 18-49 who are Hispanic, Latino, American Indian or Alaska native are 7 times more likely than white patients of the same age to be hospitalized. Black patients between 18-and-49 years old are nearly 5 times more likely than white patients of the same age to be hospitalized.
The findings are part of the CDC’sweekly report on the coronavirus pandemic in America.
Weekly rates of hospitalizations have been increasing this fall since late September. Overall, the increase has been driven by patients who are older than 50. However, the CDC finds that weekly hospitalization rates among children have been increased for the last two weeks.
The nationwide percent of positivity rate for specimens tested for COVID-19 is at 10.5 percent for the week ending November 7. It was 8.4 percent the week before.
As of November 17, the U.S. has reported more than 11.2 million cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic started in March. Nearly a million of those cases happened in just the last week or so, as the virus spreads rapidly across the country. There have been almost 248,000 deaths in this country from the coronavirus.