At least 37% of SLO County’s coronavirus cases are Latino. To help them, we need complete data

Though statistics are frustratingly incomplete, a breakdown of positive coronavirus cases by race shows Latinos have been the hardest hit group in San Luis Obispo County.

According to information the county has provided the state Department of Public Health, out of 274 positive cases in SLO County (now up to 288), at least 101 of those patients are Latino.

Another 74 are “not Hispanic or Latino,” and there is no information on race for the remaining 100 cases.

Still, the information we do have is telling.

Out of the 175 cases identified by race, Latinos make up nearly 58%.

And when you look at the 274 cases, they account for nearly 37% — even though Latinos make up only 23% of SLO County’s population.

Keep in mind, that 37% is almost certainly low, since there is no racial/ethnic data for 100 cases.

That tracks with statewide data, which show that coronavirus has taken the heaviest toll on people of color.

Why are cases so high?

Epidemiologists offer a variety of reasons that Latino communities have higher case counts: Less access to medical care; higher rates of some preexisting medical conditions; more crowded living conditions that make if harder to isolate people who become infected.

“We have multiple families in one house sharing one bathroom, one kitchen, and that makes it that much more likely for others in the household to get infected,” Dr. Toni Ramirez told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. “This pandemic is really just unveiling the systemic social and economic inequities in the country.”

Also, a disproportionate percentage of people of color work in essential jobs like food service, agriculture and health care. They don’t have the luxury of working at home, which increases their exposure to the virus.

More complete data would give researchers an even clearer picture of why certain populations are being harder hit by the virus.

Information on occupation, for instance, could turn up red flags for certain industries, signaling the need for additional precautions for those workers.

That is being tracked to a limited extent, but typically doesn’t show up in the statistics counties provide to the public. Monterey County is an exception; its website includes occupational information, along with data on preexisting health conditions, plus the usual breakdowns by age, race and geographic community. The information is collected by county health workers doing investigations of positive cases.

San Luis Obispo County also gathers information from doing detailed case investigations.

“However, the information is often hard to get and is not complete,” County Health spokesperson Michelle Shoresman told The Tribune via email. “Because the data is so relatively incomplete, we have not considered reporting it regularly with our statistics.”

Still, even limited data can help explain why some communities with large Latino populations, like Paso Robles and Santa Maria, are “hot spots” for coronavirus.

How demographic information can help

Any time a disease affects a particular community, researchers need to be aware so they can attempt to figure out 1) why it’s happening and 2) how to prevent it.

Also, healthcare workers can step up testing and health education efforts, and members of the community can be more vigilant in avoiding infection and watching for symptoms.

Yet in the case of coronavirus, some officials have been hesitant to report information out of fear that a community could be stigmatized — which is exactly what happened to Asian people who were blamed for the “China virus.”

That’s a valid concern, but good policy can’t be set aside because we’re worried about what bigoted people might do with the information.

It’s disappointing, then, that California has been so haphazard in its collection of data during the COVID-19 crisis.

It didn’t start reporting cases by race until April 8 — more than two months after the state’s first case was reported in late January — and is missing race/ethnicity information for 29% of cases.

Going forward, California needs a robust data collection system that, at a bare minimum, gathers information on gender, age, race and community of residence. That should be the standard in any epidemic.

The state says it’s “requesting” that data from labs and county health departments.

That’s not good enough.

If the state can order a lockdown, it can use emergency powers to require that testing sites — including private labs — gather all relevant data. If individuals don’t want to provide it, fine. But if it’s clearly explained how valuable that data could be to current and future research, most people should cooperate.

We can’t ignore the fact that people of color are suffering from this disease to a far greater extent than the white community. On the contrary, we need to shine a light on it.

Ideally, good demographic data will not only aid medical research, it also will help drive public policy by pointing out that there are strong public health reasons to fund adequate housing and access to health care.

It may be too late to recoup some of that information. We’ll have to live with that.

San Luis Obispo County should post all of the statistics it has available.

And the state of California should stop “requesting” information and start demanding it.

This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 7:24 AM.