California has seen a five-fold increase in coronavirus death rates among working-age Latinos over the past three months, as the state reported an increase in coronavirus cases after the economy partially opened earlier this summer, according to a new study released Thursday by the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, which is part of UCLA Health.
From May 11 to August 11, researchers looked at the progression of coronavirus-related deaths in Latino communities in three different working-age populations: young adults (age 18 ages34); early middle age (35‒49); and late middle age (50‒69).
While COVID-19 deaths burn their way through all working-age Latino populations, the death rate is highest for middle-aged Latinos. At 54.73 deaths per 100,000 people, their mortality rate is about 25 times higher than the mortality rate among young adults, which saw a 2.12 mortality rate. Early Latino Latinos saw a death rate of 14.23 coronavirus, almost four times higher than the late middle-aged population.
“Anything that threatens the stability of our economy, such as COVID-19’s invasion of the working-age population, must be taken seriously,” said David E. Hayes-Bautista, a health policy professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health co-authored the report, in a statement. “The virus is affecting the working-age population, and the young Latino population is disproportionately represented in this demographic.”
Hayes-Bautista and fellow co-author Paul Hsu, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, said in the report that “if the coronavirus works its deadly way in every nook and cranny of the population of California, its victims’ profiles are becoming clearer and clearer: they are the unconditional essential workers “like the” farm workers who feed California, truck drivers who transport the state’s goods, meat and vegetable packers, the plank bakers and cashiers from the grocery industry, construction workers, auto mechanics, gardeners and gardeners, bus drivers, office cleaners, caregivers, and others who work day and night to keep California functioning. “
José Roberto Álvarez Mena, 67, who worked as head of maintenance for Mission Foods Corp., an American tortilla maker in Commerce, California, was one of them.
He died at COVID-19 on July 20; after his employer reported no coronavirus outbreak that infected at least 40 of her workers, according to the Los Angeles Department of Public Health.
The coronavirus has killed at least 12,407 people in California, almost half of them Latinos.
“These are not just numbers. These are people. They are mothers, fathers, siblings, uncles who are no longer with us,” said Alisha Álvarez, daughter of José Roberto, formerly Telemundo in Spanish.
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