COVID-19 has hit Beaufort Co.’s Hispanic, Latino residents disproportionately hard
Hispanic and Latino residents in Beaufort County have been hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19, new state data show.
As of Thursday, 19.1% of the county’s coronavirus cases with a reported ethnicity — 654 of 3,422 — have been Hispanic or Latino people, even though the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that Hispanics or Latinos made up 11.1% of the county’s population in 2019.
In comparison, across South Carolina, only 10.1% of all COVID-19 cases with a reported ethnicity have been Hispanics or Latinos, according to data released Thursday by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. Last year, 6% of the state’s population was Hispanic or Latino, the Census Bureau estimated.
Yajaira Benet Uzcategui, a community health worker at Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, said the county’s figures aren’t surprising.
Benet Uzcategui, who’s also the Lowcountry coordinator for PASOs, a Columbia-based organization that helps connect Latinos with health resources, said DHEC has done a good job publishing coronavirus warnings in Spanish and coordinating outreach with Latinos in the state.
But, she said, there are certain realities in Beaufort County that force Latinos into risky COVID-19 situations.
“It is hard,” she said Wednesday. “You have to go to work. Period. And the close quarters where we live. ...”
Some of the county’s Latino families have to stay in a single room due to high rent, she said, which means the coronavirus can spread quickly person to person. Others have no choice but to go outside for work.
Similar to the case statistics, 12.8% of coronavirus deaths with a reported ethnicity in Beaufort County — six fatalities of 43 — have been Hispanics or Latinos, the Thursday data show. Just 3.9% of these deaths statewide were identified as Hispanics or Latinos.
Coronavirus hospitalizations in the county with a reported ethnicity have mirrored those death numbers. Roughly 20% of these admissions — 40 of 198 — were Hispanic or Latino people, according to DHEC.
Just 7% of statewide hospitalizations for COVID-19 this year were Hispanics or Latinos, at least among those with a reported ethnicity as of Thursday.
“It’s definitely not surprising,” said Dr. Faith Polkey, chief clinical officer at BJHCHS, of the new DHEC data.
People of color have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s due, in part, to long-standing disparities in the nation’s health care system, the CDC says.
“Inequities in the social determinants of health, such as poverty and healthcare access, affecting these groups are interrelated and influence a wide range of health and quality-of-life outcomes and risks,” the CDC says.
For example, Black people have accounted for 22.4% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States while making up only 13.4% of the population last year, according to CDC data and Census Bureau estimates.
In Beaufort County, Black residents made up an estimated 17.9% of the population in 2019, according to the Census Bureau. But the new DHEC data show that Black people have accounted for 23.3%, or 14, of the county’s COVID-19 deaths with a reported race.
That countywide percentage, unlike the one reported for Hispanic and Latino residents, is lower than the state’s. According to DHEC, as of Thursday, 35.8% of all coronavirus deaths in South Carolina with an identified race have been Black people.
Likewise, 28%, or 60, of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Beaufort County have been Black people, while statewide that figure sat at 46.2% on Thursday.
Polkey, of BJHCHS, said a range of factors could be contributing to the county-specific disparities.
Many Latino and Black residents in the area are front-line or essential workers, she said, who may come into contact with the pathogen. Multi-generational households, she added, could play a role in the spread.
“There may be one or more families living together,” she said.
Regular community disease transmission, she said, could also be part of the problem.
“My concern is just messaging and how we are reaching these communities,” Polkey said.
White people, meanwhile, have accounted for 60% of COVID-19-related deaths in Beaufort County with an identified race this year — 36 fatalities of 50 — but made up an estimated 78.2% of the county’s population in 2019.
In total, 60 COVID-19 deaths and 4,256 coronavirus cases have been recorded in Beaufort County as of Thursday.
According to DHEC, 11.2% of cases in the county as of Thursday have been Black people, at least among those with a reported race. White people have accounted for 32% of cases, or 1,363.
That data, though, is incomplete. Of the reported cases in Beaufort County “where race was available,” DHEC on Thursday marked 31.8% as “under investigation.”
Laura Renwick, a DHEC spokesperson, in an email wrote that racial data for cases is self-reported. If a person doesn’t disclose their race, the state agency works to follow up on the matter, she said.
“Demographic information can be a key factor in helping to determine a disease’s prevalence among certain ages, genders, or races and ethnicities,” she wrote Wednesday.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
