Florida coronavirus rates twice as high in black, Hispanic areas, internal state data shows
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Coronavirus is twice as rampant among blacks and Latinos in Florida than it is among white people, a Palm Beach Post analysis of internal Health Department testing data shows.
About 25 percent of Hispanics and 20 percent of blacks tested positive for the virus, compared to about 11 percent of whites, The Post found in analyzing nearly 200,000 test results in which patients self-reported their race or ethnicity.
The Post found large concentrations of the disease in ZIP codes with a majority of black or Hispanic residents and a much smaller concentration in white-majority ZIP codes, in an analysis of an even larger portion of the data — about 545,000 test results in which patients listed their home address.
Additionally, more than 60 percent of about 43,000 people confirmed with the disease lived in ZIP codes where Census estimates show the majority of residents are not white. An examination of negative test results shows most were from majority white ZIP codes.
When Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed most of the state to reopen in early May, he relied in part on a metric he called positivity, demanding that less than 10 percent of those tested in every county have positive results before reopening.
By that standard, The Post found, residents in minority communities throughout Florida wouldn’t have been eligible for the reopening wave that began May 4.
The positivity rate stood at about 11 percent for residents in majority black or Latino ZIP codes, compared to 5 percent for those in majority white ZIP codes, the analysis showed.
The testing data obtained by The Post, which captured residents who were tested for the virus over about three months ending May 14, is not publicly available, meaning it can’t be studied by researchers, academics or other interested members of the public. It shows results of more than 600,000 tests, many containing addresses and racial information of those tested, but no names.
The Post compared positivity rates in each ZIP code to racial makeup as calculated in 2018 U.S. Census estimates.
“That is exactly how I would do that analysis,” said Dr. Terry Adirim, chairwoman of Florida Atlantic University’s Integrated Biomedical Science Department.
The Florida Council of Medical School Deans requested this data in early May from the Health Department but has yet to receive it, said Adirim, who is a member of the group.
Adirim cautioned that the race and ethnicity data, covering one-third of the test results, could be considered less reliable because it reflects only tests on people who volunteered that information.
However, she was not surprised by The Post’s results, which were supported by the ZIP code analysis. Those details came from about 80 percent of all test results.
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State’s missing data
In early April, as reports showed that the novel coronavirus infected and killed blacks and Latinos across the country at higher rates than white people, Florida health officials reported no such demographic disparity.
Statewide figures have huge gaps in capturing racial and ethnic breakdowns. With 58,701 cases among Florida residents listed Thursday, the state reported 55 percent testing positive were white, 21 percent black, 10 percent other and 15 percent unknown. Since Hispanic origin is not a race, it is listed as a subset within each race.
White people account for about 54 percent of Florida’s population, black people 17 percent, and Hispanics 26 percent.
On the state’s daily updates, the portion of cases where race and ethnicity is unknown is even greater in Palm Beach County, 20 percent. Other counties have far more detailed records, such as Sarasota County, which lists the race and ethnicity of people testing positive in all but about 6 percent of cases.
But the Health Department doesn’t show results by race for those testing negative for the virus. The agency also provides no racial details by ZIP code.
While DeSantis has traveled the state making presentations on a nearly daily basis, he has never discussed how state data shows that the virus affects black and Latino communities.
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The Health Department maintains that it routinely reviews such data.
“Age, gender and racial data are basic demographics used to provide insight on a disease’s distribution in a population,” department spokesman Alberto Moscoso said. “The department utilizes this data to effectively plan and direct public health resources to where they are needed most.”
The health director in Palm Beach County, Dr. Alina Alonso, has told county commissioners that she is concentrating training and testing in minority communities where she has observed high rates of coronavirus.
Her team’s racial analysis lines up with what The Post found, she said in an interview.
“For us (Palm Beach County), Belle Glade and the Lake Worth area broadly also make up a large Hispanic population,” Alonso said, referring to areas with high rates of COVID-19.
While Florida State Medical Association President Dr. Sheryl Holder praised the state for setting up testing sites in nonwhite communities, she admonished it for failing to communicate to those residents early on. The state hadn’t done the type of outreach necessary to gain the trust of African Americans, Carribeans, Latinos and other people who may be wary of the government, she said.
It remains unclear if DeSantis or Health Department officials analyzed, or even considered, the prevalence of the pathogen among Florida’s black and brown communities before the first phase of reopening on May 4.
The racial disparity persisted even in people tested in the first two weeks of May, where, after six weeks in shutdown mode, the positivity rates had fallen sharply.
Just over 10 percent of tests on black and Latino people during that time period came back positive, compared to about 4 percent for white people.
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Disparity spreads statewide
While South Florida, with heavy concentrations of black and Latino residents, had high levels of disparity, the racial gap isn’t confined to the region.
Hispanics made up 47 percent of the people tested in South Florida but 53 percent of those testing positive. In the rest of the state, Hispanics were 13 percent of those tested but 23 percent of those testing positive.
Likewise, in an analysis of non-Hispanics, blacks made up 37 percent of those getting tests in South Florida but 52 percent testing positive. Outside the three-county area, about a fifth of those tested were black and they made up more than a quarter of the positive tests.
The virus’ spread reaches deep in black and brown communities in South Florida’s big cities, Glades farming towns and Florida’s Panhandle.
In Little Havana, a mostly Hispanic Miami neighborhood, the disease was found in about one in four of those tested.
Two Palm Beach County ZIP codes also rank high: the majority black ZIP codes of 33430 in Belle Glade and 33476 in Pahokee, Glades towns where the respiratory illness was found in one in five of those tested.
About one in six people tested positive in the Bradenton ZIP code of 34208 — 30 percent Hispanic and 24 percent black.
Just east of Fort Myers, in the Lehigh Acres ZIP codes of 33971 and 33973, where black and Latinos are the majority, the positivity rate is 15 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
Residents of Gadsden County in the Panhandle, the only majority black county in Florida, have tested positive for the coronavirus at especially high rates. In its 32352 ZIP code, where 54 percent of residents are black, about one in six tested positive.
Class does not close the COVID-19 racial gap. Just 4 percent to 6 percent of residents in white ZIP codes tested positive, whether the area was lower, middle, or upper income. Minority ZIP codes’ positivity rates were, on average, at least double in each of those areas.
About one in 13 residents tested positive In downtown Gainesville’s 32601 ZIP code, next to the University of Florida. Half the residents earn less than $30,000 annually in the ZIP code, which is majority white.
About one in nine tested positive in Tampa’s 33612 ZIP code, bordering University of South Florida, where no race holds a majority and median income is about $33,000.
About one in 10 people got positive results in Latino ZIP codes where estimated median incomes are at least $75,000, compared to about one in 18 of those tested in white, equally wealthy, ZIP codes.
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In a heavily Hispanic ZIP code encompassing much of Doral, where President Donald Trump owns a golf resort, about one in seven people tested were infected, twice the state average of one in 14 at the time.
Now, minorities in huge numbers are taking to the streets to protest the Minneapolis death of Floyd George at the hands of police, adding another element of risk, said Robert Redfield, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I do think there is a potential, unfortunately, for this to be a seeding event,” Redfield told a House committee Thursday.
More testing, he said, is one way to overcome the potential for continued spread.
“The way to minimize that is to have each individual recognize it's to the advantage of them to protect their loved ones to (say), ‘Hey, I was out. I need to go get tested,’” Redfield said.
cpersaud@pbpost.com
@chrismpersaud
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida coronavirus rates twice as high in black, Hispanic areas, internal state data shows
