The United States adds more than 400,000 deaths from coronavirus but not all are Americans

In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden recalled that the COVID-19 pandemic "has already killed more than 400,000 Americans."

And this Thursday he launched his national plan to redouble the fight against the pandemic, which will probably have claimed the lives of half a million people in the United States by the end of February, according to the health authorities. 

Is it true that the 500,000 victims of the pandemic in the country are Americans?

Biden's words need context to make visible the real effect of the pandemic in Latino communities, made up mostly of immigrants.

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That the Latino population has been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus - its death rate is almost three times higher than that of the white population - is nothing new.

But as the new Joe Biden administration prepares to accelerate the national vaccination campaign against COVID-19, it becomes necessary to emphasize why it is vital that the Hispanic population be reached by this massive effort.    

According to the most recent data shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of the 329,593 deaths recorded as of January 13, about 72,000, or 22%, were Hispanic.

These represent around two out of every five deaths.

It is important to clarify that the CDC data is delayed between one to eight weeks, or more, due to the time between when a death occurs and when the death certificate is written. 

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The proportion of Latinos who have died during the pandemic exceeds the percentage of Latinos in the total United States population: 18.5%.

It is estimated that 1 in every 1,000 Latinos in the country has died of COVID-19 compared to 1 in every 1,030 white people.

Hispanics also lead the deaths of people between 0 and 54 years old, and in several states such as Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, Ohio and South Carolina, Hispanics killed by COVID-19 double the percentage of Hispanics who reside there. 

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Within the already battered Latino population, however, there is one group in particular that has been devastated: immigrants. 

It is difficult to establish the number of immigrants who have died from the coronavirus, but studies and data published during the pandemic give us some clues:

The Pew Research Center estimates that more than a third of Latinos residing in the United States are immigrants.

If, as we mentioned above, nearly 72,000 Hispanics have died from COVID-19, we could estimate that at least 25,000 victims of the pandemic were immigrants, undocumented, and legal residents.   

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Lost on the Frontline

is a project of The Guardian newspaper and Kaiser Health News that keeps a count of health workers who have died in the pandemic and whom it humanizes through reports on their lives.

As of January 20, the project had counted 3,248 deaths, 15% of them Latino.

More than a third of the total were immigrants from countries around the world, including Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Peru. 

Taking into account that 30% of the doctors and more than 16% of the nurses working in the United States are immigrants, the probability of more deaths within this population is not low.

Furthermore, 60% of workers in jobs that have not rested during the pandemic, such as agriculture, fishing, and services, are immigrants.

Moreover, there are figures that indicate that less than 30% of immigrants occupy jobs that they can do from home.      

A clearer number among immigrants who have died from COVID-19 are those undocumented who were detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE, for its acronym in English).

As of January 19, eight immigrants had died in his care during the pandemic, almost all Latino.

Another 580 of about 15,000 who remain in ICE custody have tested positive for the virus.

The numbers, immigrant advocates say, could be even higher because ICE does not record the deaths of people who were infected at its facilities but died after being released or deported.  

Something that should interest health authorities is that fighting the coronavirus inside ICE detention centers benefits not only immigrants, but also the general population.

A study published in December by the Detention Watch Network, a national coalition seeking the abolition of immigration detention, identified 245,000 cases as “the result of (uncontrolled) community transmission of COVID-19 beyond the walls and gates of facilities. of ICE ”.

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With these data, and understanding that Biden probably uses the word "Americans" with a general approach to the affected population in the country, it is also fair to explain that among the victims of the pandemic there is a significant number of Hispanics, whose hospitalization rate and death is greater than that of white people. These data are especially relevant now that some politicians have already announced their intention to leave the undocumented last on the vaccination lists in some states.