Coronavirus Hit Black, Latino Middlesex Co. Residents Hard: Data

WOBURN, MA — Newly released data show how Black and Latino residents in Middlesex County have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, contracting the virus at a rate over three times that of white residents.

The data show that the case rate for Black people in Middlesex County was 271 per 10,000 residents compared to 77 per 10,000 for whites. The case rate for Latinos was 238 per 10,000, according to the data. The county-level data, through May 28, was released over the weekend by the New York Times, which sued the Centers for Disease Control to get it.

More white people overall contracted coronavirus in Middlesex County, accounting for nearly 9,000 of the 15,000 cases where the race of the person was reported. But since white people make up about 77 percent of the county population, the rate of infection was vastly lower.

There were 49 cases per 10,000 Asian residents.

The imbalance is due to a range of factors, from poverty to living conditions, according to the CDC. Nationwide, American Indian, Black, and Latino people have the highest coronavirus hospitalization rates, the CDC found. Black and Latino people are also about 3-1/2 times more likely to die of coronavirus than white people, according to Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh.

"Long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put some members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, regardless of age," the CDC said in a brief about the disproportionate impact of the pandemic.

The pandemic is slowing in Massachusetts — the state entered phase 3 on Monday — but health officials believe that the disease could come back in a second wave when the weather cools in the fall, coinciding with flu season. As of Sunday, 24,153 Middlesex County residents had tested positive for coronavirus, the highest of any county in the state.