Black, Indigenous, Pacific Islander and Latino Americans all have COVID-19 death rates of roughly triple or more the rate of White Americans (age-adjusted).
What does this mean? It indicates that many younger Americans who are Black, Latino, Indigenous or Pacific Islanders are dying of COVID-19—driving their mortality rates far above White Americans’. Despite their relative youthfulness (a protective factor against COVID), their death rates are elevated. As Brookings Institution has reported, “In every age category, Black people are dying from COVID at roughly the same rate as White people more than a decade older.”
Depending on the community, this may be due to numerous, reinforcing factors related to a higher likelihood of contracting the virus—such as greater workplace exposures, including inability to work from home or no access to sick days; living in geographic areas, housing arrangements including congregate settings (such as nursing homes, group homes, treatment centers, correctional facilities), or accessing public transportation where the virus is more easily spread. It also results from poorer outcomes after acquiring COVID-19—such as resulting from less access to testing; higher presence of underlying health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, obesity and asthma; and receiving delayed or poorer medical care, perhaps because they lack health insurance or distrust health providers or they are simply receiving inferior care.
https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race