Vulnerable US Latino communities hard hit by COVID-19

GUADALUPE, Ariz. (AP) — A Hispanic immigrant working at a fast-food restaurant in North Carolina is rushed to the hospital after she contracts COVID-19. A sickened Honduran woman in Baltimore with no health insurance or immigration status avoids the doctor for two weeks and finally takes a cab to the hospital and ends up on oxygen.

As the coronavirus spreads deeper across America, it’s ravaging through Latino communities from the suburbs of the nation’s capital to the farm fields of Florida to the sprawling suburbs of Phoenix and countless areas in between.

The virus has amplified the inequalities that many Latinos endure, including jobs that expose them to others, tight living conditions, lack of health insurance, mistrust of the medical system and a greater incidence of preexisting health conditions like diabetes. And many Latinos don’t have the luxury of sheltering at home.

"People simply cannot afford to stop working,” said Mauricio Calvo, executive director of the Latino Memphis advocacy group in Tennessee.

In many areas, Latinos comprise a dramatically higher percentage of the positive COVID-19 tests compared to other racial and ethnic groups.

About 65% of positive tests in the county that is home to Chattanooga, Tennessee, are Latinos even though they make up just 6% of the population. With many infected families living in the same housing unit with no other place to go, Chattanooga officials are exploring a plan to provide alternative sites at hotels or other locations for residents who need to isolate but can't afford to move out and live elsewhere.

The same disparities exist across the country.

Latinos account for 45% of coronavirus cases in North Carolina, where they make up only 10% of the population, according to the state's Department of...