A disproportionate number of African Americans and Asians are among the 188 Iowans who have died due to novel coronavirus, according to figures the Iowa Department of Public Health published for the first time on May 4.
The state’s official website for COVID-19 information added a link to “IDPH COVID-19 Iowa Hospitalizations by County and Deaths by Race and Ethnicity,” where previously only county-level hospitalizations were shown.
The first set of numbers cover deaths reported to the public health department through May 3.
African Americans make up 4.0 percent of Iowa’s population but 7.4 percent of those who have died from COVID-19 infections.
Asians make up 2.7 of the state’s population but 3.7 percent of COVID-19 deaths so far. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are estimated to make up 0.1 percent of Iowa’s population but account for 1.6 percent of recorded deaths from coronavirus. If Asians and Pacific Islanders are considered as one group, they account for 5.3 percent of COVID-19 deaths, nearly double their share of the state population (2.8 percent).
About 6.4 percent of Iowans who have died from the virus are Hispanic or Latino, comparable to the 6.2 percent of the state’s population estimated to be from that ethnicity.
The department noted that among Iowans who have died, the race is unknown for fifteen people and ethnicity is unknown for 21.
Wider racial disparities are apparent in known COVID-19 cases. The latest official figures (which you can find under the “demographics” tab on the state dashboard) show that 22.7 percent of Iowans with coronavirus are Latino, nearly four times that group’s share of the population. The share of confirmed cases among African Americans (13.1 percent) and Asians or Pacific Islanders (8.9 percent) are more than triple the proportion of those racial groups in Iowa as a whole.
Residents of long-term care facilities are more likely to die of COVID-19 than others, since they are predominantly over age 65 and often have underlying health conditions. That is probably why white patients comprised 79.3 percent of Iowa deaths recorded so far, while making up 53.2 percent of confirmed cases.
Iowa’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks have been linked to meatpacking plants, where most workers are people of color and many are immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries, Africa, or Asia. The Sioux City Journal’s Dolly Butz profiled profiled Viengxay Khuninh of Dakota City, Nebraska, who worked at Tyson Fresh Meats before falling ill and dying last month. The Dakota City beef processing plant is believed to be the source of most COVID-19 cases in the Sioux City metro area.
Ryan Foley of the Associated Press covered how coronavirus ravaged the Martinez family of West Liberty. Aurelia Martinez, an egg factory worker, was first to become sick in late March. She recovered at home, but soon one of her daughters, Evelyn Martinez, was on a ventilator in an Iowa City hospital. Aurelia’s husband, Jose Gabriel Martinez, later died of COVID-19.
The Iowa Department of Public Health did not release the racial breakdown of COVID-19 deaths at the same time officials began publishing demographic information about confirmed cases in mid-April, on the grounds that doing so when fatality numbers were low (below 100 statewide) could risk identifying a patient.
Final note: Iowa’s official death toll does not include one person whose test could not be processed, but whose death was ruled COVID-19 related by the Washington County coroner, the Associated Press reported on April 1.