In Los Angeles, the Latino community have the highest cases of coronavirus especially with the reopening of businesses.
Photo by 12019 for Pixabay
In Los Angeles, the Latino community have the highest cases of coronavirus especially with the reopening of businesses.
Photo by 12019 for Pixabay

With businesses needed to pick up due to the economy, COVID-19 new cases have continued to create a rising tide in the "Sun Belt" states, which includes a part of California.

However, the Latino demographic in Los Angeles has spiked-up its cases with about 80,000 cases last Friday.

In fact, as of June 5, there were about 60,000 reported COVID-19 positive cases, according to a report from the NBC News.

On the same day also, there was a reported 90 positive cases with one death in Clinica Romero.

Los Angeles County has overseen almost 870,000 tests for SARS-CoV-2.

Clinica Romero's Dr. Don Garcia explained that they have already finished with 286 trials, which registered a positive rate case of 40 percent.

Why The Latino Community Is Being Hit Hard

The reopening of workplaces means planned health and precautionary safety measures.

Being that, most members of this vulnerable workgroup are coming from the Latino and Black communities.

One has to take into consideration that those from Clinica Romero's database belongs to individuals who do blue-collar work and don't have the necessary documents for staying in the country.

Besides having employment that exposes them to the virus daily (e.g., using public transportation), some of these individuals are most likely living in a multigenerational housing that will not allow them to isolate themselves once a cough or a flue strikes.


According to Yahoo! News, the Latino community has a triple threat of factors that have spiked up the cases.

The first is having plenty of exposure time to the virus, the second is they have underlying health conditions, and the third is ineligibility to access the proper health care systems such as for Medi-cal.

The article also mentioned that racial disparities' access to coronavirus testing might depend on the community in which you live.

Recent data indicates that in California, the counties that have predominantly white populations have a higher percentage of tests done.

The California Department of Public Health has pointed out there are nine counties with an "elevated risk transmission."

What's alarming is that these areas here are predominantly Hispanics, namely:

  • Fresno
  • Imperial
  • Kern
  • Kings
  • Riverside
  • Stanislaus
  • Tulare
  • San Joaquin
  • Los Angeles

According to Politico, the risk of acquiring COVID-19 is also unusually high for Hispanics who are between 35 and 44.

They have a higher mortality rate of 8 times higher than for people of European descent.

For black people in the same age level, they have nine times greater than those without color.

Once more, this tackles a young individual's employment background that includes inadequate protection in the workplace area.

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