How the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the AANHPI community

• AANHPIs are on the front line of the pandemic — Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders make up a significant portion of front-line workers who are exposed to COVID-19. The latest data on cases by state and race/ethnicity show that 4 of the 10 states with the highest number of COVID-10 cases are also among the top 10 states with largest number of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders per capita, Equitable Growth reports.

• Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders face COVID-19 disparities — Pacific Islanders living in the United States are being hospitalized with COVID-19 at up to 10 times the rate of some other racial groups. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department reported that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders are facing a COVID-19 diagnosis rate that is 4.5 times higher than that of the white population. Community leaders have been communicating with the department to identify contributing factors and solutions to curb the disparity.

• Filipino American nurses are hard hit by COVID-19 — More than 1,700 health care workers have died from the virus, according to a September report from National Nurses United (NNU). Of those, 67 of the 213 nurses who’d died were Filipino Americans, making them the largest non-white ethnic group of nurses to die from the virus.

• Asian American deaths see significant rise — New data shows that Asian Americans join Black and Hispanic communities as the hardest hit, with deaths in these groups up 30 percent compared with the average over the last five years. Asian American deaths saw a 35% increase, second-highest behind Hispanic Americans, Associated Press reported.

• A need for disaggregated data — The total effects of COVID-19 on the Asian American and Pacific Islander is difficult to calculate due to data not being disaggregated. In many counties in the United States, data isn’t collected for cause of death by race. Localized and disaggregated data, however, shows that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been hard hit by the pandemic. For example, Asian Americans account for almost half of COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco. And in California and Hawai‘i, Pacific Islanders are shown to have the highest death rate of any racial group, according to The Marshall Project.

• Rise in discrimination against Asian Americans linked to COVID-19 — 58% of Asian American adults now say it is more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views about Asian Americans than before the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information, read the One Nation “AAPIs Rising to Fight Dual Pandemics Covid-19 and Racism” report.

For more information, visit apicat.org/covid19.