-
A health care worker in Bolinas conducts tests for the coronavirus disease April 20, 2020, during the pandemic. (CNS photo/Kate Munsch, Reuters)
Updated April 30, 2020, 8:08 a.m.
April 21, 2020
Christina Gray
Catholic San Francisco
COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on San Franciscans geographically, with the highest incidence largely occurring in densely populated eastern and southeastern parts of the city: the Mission District, South of Market, China Basin and Bayview-Hunters Point, according to city data released April 20.
The data showing the spread of COVID-19 by ZIP code, which are consistent with the pandemic's unequal spread throughout California and nationally, highlight “some of the disparities we knew” about the link between health and wealth, Mayor London Breed said at a press conference.
The Mission had the highest total number of cases in the city, at 182 as of April 25.
Screen shot of a San Francisco Department of Public Health map showing the spread of confirmed COVID-19 cases by ZIP code.
"We see in the Mission there are more cases, which is consistent with our findings," Breed said. "About 25% of those infected are Latino, but the Latino community represents 15% of the population, so there's a huge disparity there.”
City data updated May 1 showed that Latinos accounted for 37% of the 1,624 San Franciscans confirmed positive for the virus but only two of the 29 deaths. Asians, by contrast, accounted for 14% of positive cases but nearly half of the deaths.
All those who have died from the virus had underlying conditions and all but one were over 60, the city said.
Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the Department of Public Health, attributed the high rate of cases in the Mission in part to instances of families living in multigenerational households where it is harder to socially distance.
South of Market is the worst-hit district by incidence, with one ZIP code more than doubling and another nearly doubling the citywide rate of a little over 16 confirmed cases per 10,000 residents. South of Market includes MSC-South, the city's largest homeless shelter and the source of a major COVID-19 oubreak.
Similar levels were shown in Bayview-Hunters Point, where census data show that a third of residents are African American.
The ZIP code map is based on the results of the two-thirds of the 11,250 COVID-19 tests the city had given as of the date of the announcement. The remaining one-third of tests did not include patients' location data, Colfax said.
Colfax said that populations most affected by health disparities, income inequality and structural racism are those most affected by the pandemic.
"Unfortunately, health emergencies exploit the unequal in society," he said. "People with chronic illness, underlying health conditions and communities that have experienced institutionalized stigma and discrimination are going to be more at risk for getting sick.”
Colfax stressed the importance of not over-generalizing the data or implying that being in a neighborhood with a higher infection rate necessarily makes a person more prone to COVID-19.
"I want to stress no ZIP code or neighborhood is inherently safer than another," he said. "Every San Franciscan should continue to exercise precaution. This map should not make any one feel more relaxed or more fearful."
California Department of Public Health Data released April 20 showed disparities in the distribution of COVID-19 deaths in the 50-to 64 and over-64 age groups, with African American deaths double to more than the double the percentage of the overall African American population in those groups.
Latino Californians have been disporportionately affected in every age group, with the largest disparity among those 18-49.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent statement that "current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups," particularly Latinos and black Americans.
COVID-19 death rates among black or African Americans and Latinos have been "substantially higher" than other groups in the U.S., the agency said.
"Why are more African Americans and Latinos affected?" New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo asked in his April 8 press briefing after detailing how some ethnic communities in the state have higher death rates from COVID-19 than others. "Why do the poorest people always pay the highest price?"
New York City Mayor Bill de de Blasio said April 14 said the results reflect "other profound health care disparities that we have seen for years and decades in the city."
Sister Patricia Chappell, former executive director of Pax Christi USA and a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, said the Catholic Church must do more to call on the government to look at the disparities and do something about them.
"I continue to be baffled by the silence on the part of our institutional church," she said in an April 23 interview with Catholic News Service.
"We do have a responsibility to reach out," she said.
Catholic News Service contributed.