Philippine Americans make up a quarter of California’s Asian-American population, but a study shows that the death rate for those who contract COVID-19 is a disquieting 40%.
Many of them are frontline health workers in the battle against COVID-19.
For example, Melissa Rue, her parents, and her brother are nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“The unknown is what is scary,” Rue said.
As caregivers fight to save lives, the virus is affecting the Philippine community.
“Many of us are health workers and what happens is that we are exposed to community-acquired infections and we take him home with our own very vulnerable family members,” said Peachy Hain, executive director of nursing at Cedars-Sinai.
The Los Angeles Times reports that of the 48 American Filipinos in southern California known to have been infected with COVID-19, 19 have died.
“We tend to congregate between immediate and extended families,” said Hain. “We have multi-generational housing. My mother lives with me. She is 91 years old.”
Many of those who died had diabetes and other pre-existing health conditions, but USC professor Dr. Adrian De Leon says poverty, high-fat diets, and lack of access to healthy food also contribute to the high rate of mortality.
“I want to urge us to think more about the social fabric of economic, racial and cultural inequality as a pre-existing condition of high death rates among the Filipino-American community and certainly also in other marginalized communities,” said De Leon. .
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