U.S. CDC: Data shows 22% of COVID-19 cases are black

Among 599,636 (45 percent) cases with known information, 33 percent of persons were Hispanic or Latino of any race (Hispanic), 22 percent were non-Hispanic black (black), and 1.3 percent were non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report published on June 15.Data comes from 1,320,488 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases individually reported to the CDC from January 22 to May 30.These findings suggest that persons in these groups, accounting for 18, 13, and 0.7 percent respectively of the U.S. population are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. "The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be severe, particularly in certain population groups," the report said.

Screenshot of CDC's report.

COVID-19–Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET), a population-based surveillance system's data shows that "higher proportions of black and Hispanic persons among hospitalized COVID-19 patients than were in the overall population."However, the findings in this report have limitations, such as an underestimation of the true prevalence because of missing data and asymptomatic cases not being fully captured.The data demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing public health crisis in the United States that affects all populations and results in severe outcomes including death, said the report. There are over 2.1 million confirmed cases and 110,000 deaths in the U.S. so far, the highest number globally.And the growth trend has not slowed significantly in the U.S. The reason could be a lack of social distancing, face mask wearing and other non-pharmaceutical prevention methods touted by public health experts for the last six months, said Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

(CGTN)