City Promises Greater Transparency On Coronavirus Demographic Data After Months Of “Flying Blind”

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning he plans to have the New York City Health Department release much sought-after demographic data on COVID-19 cases and deaths, following days of pressure from elected officials and healthcare professionals who’ve pressed the mayor to do so as a means of confirming major health disparities of coronavirus cases.

“[W]e have enough data to put out. I’m not sure it’s as perfect as it could be and I think it will take time to make it better, but we’re gonna have something out this week, for sure,” said de Blasio, who agrees that the virus is undoubtedly affecting communities of color and neighborhoods with historically poor health outcomes.

Soon after de Blasio held his news conference, the Cuomo administration announced the state will follow suit and release demographic data on COVID-19 patients. It’s unclear, however, how detailed the pending demographics--including whether they’ll be broken down by zip code--will get.

The news comes two days after de Blasio held a conference call with members of the New York City Council, during which several members urged the mayor to release the data, arguing it is imperative to understanding which New Yorkers are most impacted by the novel coronavirus. The move is supported by Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who told MSNBC on Monday that the data needs to be released.

“You’ve seen the hardest hit neighborhoods be the neighborhoods that are predominantly low-income communities of color. You saw just a little over a week ago what was happening in Elmhurst. That is a low-income community of color. A lot of undocumented individuals live in that neighborhood,” said Johnson. “The Bronx in New York City is now being really hit hard. The Bronx has the highest number of low-income people of color in New York City as it relates to the boroughs.”

In the Bronx, statistics analyzed by Gothamist show the case fatality rate—a calculation that divides the total number of deaths by the total number of positive coronavirus cases—is 50% higher than the rest of the boroughs. According to the most recent numbers released by the city, there are 14,421 known coronavirus cases in the Bronx, with 850 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

Councilman Ritchie Torres, who represents portions of the Central Bronx and was the first member to test positive for COVID-19, argues that racially concentrated poverty plays a role in poorer health outcomes. “We need data that shines a light on the truth so that all of us can see clearly the dearth of racial disparities,” said Torres, who wants data on racial disparities on fatalities, hospitalizations, intubations, and ICU admissions.

By distributing the information publicly, Councilman Andrew Cohen—whose district covering the Norwood and Riverdale sections of the Bronx were hit early during the COVID-19 outbreak—asserts that effective strategizing can follow.

“If there was a particularly high infection rate in the Bangladeshi community in Norwood, I’d like to know that. That’s a group we could target to educate about social distancing; maybe there’s some practice going on there that they don’t understand is counter-productive,” said Cohen, who learned that testing sites have not recorded the ethnicity of those tested.

The meeting came two days after New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams applied his own metric of pressure, sending a letter to the New York City Health & Mental Hygiene pleading for demographic data to be released. In a Zoom conference call today, Williams reiterated his stance.

“People have a right to see the data that's being used to make certain decisions,” said Williams, who is also calling for the city to take stronger measures to limit exposure of essential workers and to further “lock down” public spaces. He also criticized de Blasio and Cuomo explicitly for being slow to act, and said he believed the reason the demographic data hasn’t been released to date is because the information will be an “embarrassing” indictment of their bad decision-making.

“You can't put the decision and the policy out and then say we're not going to put out the data. Well then what are you using to make decisions? Are you just flying blind? I think that's worse than anything. Put out the data and say this is why we're making decisions. And if the data changes, you say that as well,” Williams added.

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer followed Williams’s lead, sending a letter to city health officials asking that demographic data on COVID-19 patients be released. “[W]e will remain partially blind to the contours and trajectory of the current COVID-19 outbreak if we are not analyzing its spread by occupation and other important demographic factors,” Stringer wrote.

The city, for its part, has sent out daily updates on several data points, including the number of confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. It’s also released the number of those tested for coronavirus and their results by zip code.

Though the city is behind the eight ball when it comes to releasing the racial demographic data, 8 states across the country—Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia—have already broken down the number of COVID-19 cases by racial demographics. Louisiana, along with Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, and North Carolina, have broken down the number of COVID-19 deaths racially.

In Louisiana, for instance, 358 of the 512 people who’ve died from coronavirus were identified as black, translating to 70% of the total number of fatalities, according to the state’s health department. It did not break down those statistics by county, including New Orleans, which has the bulk of the cases. Black people in Michigan have died more from the disease, about 40%, than any other demographic. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, black residents make up 71% of coronavirus cases.

Civil rights advocates are pushing the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control to begin releasing data about race and ethnicity of COVID-19 cases on a daily basis. In a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and more than 400 medical professionals from across the country wrote it was insufficient to rely on “some local and state health departments” to publish race and ethnicity data for COVID-19 cases and outcomes.

“The CDC must publicly report nationwide demographic data for COVID-19 tests, cases and outcomes to ensure that healthcare is being administered equitably across racial lines,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee, who pointed to the existing CDC COVID-19 case form that asks for the data.

Clarke noted that section six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibit federally funded health care providers from administering services in a discriminatory manner. Given the well-documented cases of healthcare disparities in the city and across the country, Clarke said the nation needs to understand who is being hardest hit by this disease.

“The public deserves transparency in order to fully understand the impact of this pandemic and its disproportionate effect on certain African American communities,” Clarke said adding, “we are sounding an alarm.”