Nearly 77 percent of the COVID-19 patients hospitalized from March to early April in New Orleans-based Ochsner Health's network were black, a new study shows.
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, examined data from 3,481 COVID-19 patients seen at an Ochsner facility between March 1 and April 11.
Oschner's total patient population is about 31 percent black, according to data on 522,679 patients who received care within the health system in the last year.
Nearly 40 percent (1,382) of the patients who tested positive for the new coronavirus were hospitalized.
Of the COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized, 76.9 percent were black, and of the 326 patients who died, 70.6 percent were black.