Hispanic or Latina women account for nearly 50 percent of COVID-19 cases among pregnant women, further indicating the devastating effects of the pandemic on the minority community, CDC data shows.
Per CDC data collected from Jan. 22 through Aug. 11, there have been 16,798 pregnant women with COVID-19 in the U.S. A little over 14,100 pregnant women provided information about race and ethnicity, of which 6,447 were Hispanic or Latina. In contrast, nearly 3,000 were Black and about 3,600 were white.
A recent study also showed that Black and Latina women in Philadelphia who are pregnant were five times more likely to be exposed to the new coronavirus than white pregnant women.
Physicians in the Washington, D.C., area said that, anecdotally, they are also seeing similar patterns, The Washington Post reports. A nonprofit that runs community health clinics in the Washington area called Mary's Center said that of 215 pregnant women who tested positive for the new virus between March and July, nearly 70 percent were Latina.
"It's very, very alarming," Maria Gomez, RN, president and CEO of Mary's Center told the Post. "We still can't figure out why we're seeing these numbers."
Mary's Center CMO Tollie Elliott, MD, said the numbers show the actual burden of COVID-19 in the Latino community. Many in the Latino community work in occupations considered essential during the pandemic and tend to live in more crowded spaces and multigenerational homes, where the coronavirus can spread more easily.
Read the full article from the Post here.
More articles on public health:
Fauci: Temperature checks often 'notoriously inaccurate'
Trump adds Dr. Scott Atlas to coronavirus task force: 5 things to know about him
Number of COVID-19 hospitalizations, state by state: Aug. 17