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Black residents of Los Angeles County are dealing with a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. The development comes shortly after California reopened its economy and the highly contagious Delta variant became the dominant strain in the U.S.
Dr. Barbara Ferrer, LA County’s public health director, tells NPR that in comparing data from two-week periods in May and June, the case incident rate for Black residents went from 39 cases per 100,000 people to 46 cases per 100,000 people. Ferrer says there was a significant but smaller increase in hospitalizations: from 8.4 hospitalizations per 100,000 Black residents to 9.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 Black residents.
For Latinx, white and Asian residents in that same time period, there were small declines in cases and hospitalizations.
“I think it’s important to note that these correlate exactly with vaccination rates and again, vaccination is the most powerful tool we have,” she says. “Ninety-nine percent of the people who are positive, 99 percent of the people who are hospitalized, 99.8 percent of the people who are passing away, unfortunately and tragically in LA County, are people who are unvaccinated.”
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