Filipino Americans in California are dying at a higher rate from coronavirus but are “little noticed,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
The first person to have died from COVID-19 in Los Angeles County was Loretta Mendoza Dionisio, a 68-year old woman of Filipino descent. In ways, her death in March may have been a precursor to the disproportionate number of Filipino fatalities in California for the months ahead.
Data compiled by Los Angeles Times indicates that while people of Filipino roots are one-fourth of the California Asian population, they represent 35% of COVID-19 deaths in that demographic.
Furthermore, research by Johns Hopkins shows that the coronavirus death rate in the United States is 3.6%. Because 19 out of 48 confirmed COVID-19 individuals of Filipino descent in California have died, this puts the fatality rate of Filipinos at 40% in the state, which is high despite the small sample.
The reason for the high fatality rate may be attributed to a combination of physiological conditions, occupational hazards, and potential economic and political insecurity, according to assistant University of Southern California professor Adrian De Leon who spoke to Los Angeles Times.
“It’s the perfect storm,” De Leon said, “in terms of exposure to the pandemic, exposure to the virus, but also exposure to a lot of other factors, too — like dense housing tends to be in places that have environmental hazards.”
Most Filipino individuals who died were also seniors, with many in “multigenerational housing with their children or in nursing homes” and had health concerns. Younger infected individuals worked essential jobs, healthcare, law enforcement and more, which contributed to the higher mortality rate.
Kim Hernandez, a registered nurse at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, is one such example of a COVID-19 patient of Filipino descent, according to Angelus News.
Three members of Hernandez’s family were nurses and she was living with her extended family and infant daughter at the time, when six members fell ill. Members of her family are still recuperating.
California has the most Filipino nurses compared to any state, according to LAist. A fifth of all nurses in the state are Filipinx.
“Now that I myself have experienced the disease, I know how families feel when their family members are in the hospital and they don’t know when they’re going to go home or if they’re going to get better,” she told Angelus News. “I feel that I’m in a perfect position to be able to help people, not only because I can, but because I have walked the walk.”
On top of the occupational proximity for Filipino Americans in California, homogenization of Asian Americans may contribute the issue receiving less attention, De Leon noted.
Black and Latinx Americans also have higher coronavirus mortality rates, and Asian Americans are generally regarded as having a lower rate. However, California Department of Public Health does not report infection rates among Asian ethnic subgroups, merging an ethnically and geologically diverse population into a label that does not accurately represent the community as a whole.
“Using ‘Asian American’ as an overarching label obscures a lot of the inequalities within and among communities,” De Leon said.
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