By Reis Thebault ,
Andrew Ba Tran and
Vanessa Williams
April 7
PLEASE NOTE
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As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the United States, it appears to be infecting and killing black Americans at a disproportionately high rate, according to a Washington Post analysis of early data from jurisdictions across the country.

The emerging stark racial disparity led the surgeon general Tuesday to acknowledge in personal terms the increased risk for African Americans amid growing demands that public-health officials release more data on the race of those who are sick, hospitalized and dying of a contagion that has killed more than 12,000 people in the United States.

A Post analysis of available data and census demographics shows that counties that are majority-black have three times the rate of infections and almost six times the rate of deaths as counties where white residents are in the majority.


African Americans by percentage of population and share of coronavirus deaths

Only a few jurisdictions publicly report coronavirus cases and deaths by race.

Percentage

of population

Percentage

of deaths

73%

70%

58%

Louisiana

Milwaukee

County, Wis.

D.C.

46%

32%

26%

67%

Michigan

Illinois

Chicago

42%

41%

32%

14%

14%

North Carolina

Connecticut

Florida

38%

21%

16%

16%

15%

10%

Source: Johns Hopkins University, state health departments and American Community Survey

In Milwaukee County, home to Wisconsin’s largest city, African Americans account for about 70 percent of the dead but just 26 percent of the population. The disparity is similar in Louisiana, where 70 percent of the people who have died were black, although African Americans make up just 32 percent of the state’s population.

In Michigan, where the state’s 845 reported deaths outrank all but New York’s and New Jersey’s, African Americans account for 33 percent of cases and roughly 40 percent of