The Covid-19 pandemic has been especially lethel to younger Latinos

Throughout the pandemic, the coronavirus has disproportionately carved a path through the nation’s Latino neighborhoods, as it has in African American, Native American and Pacific Islander communities. The death rate in those communities from covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, is at least double that for Whites and Asian Americans, federal data shows.

Even more stunning: the deadly efficiency with which the virus has targeted Latinos in their 30s and 40s.

In California, which has the nation’s largest Hispanic population, state figures show that as of Wednesday, Latino people ages 35 to 49 died of the virus at more than 5½ times the rate of White people the same age. The gap was even wider a few months earlier: In December, when Quintero fell ill, Latino people in the prime of life were nearly seven times more likely to die than their White peers, according to the Covid Tracking Project, an independent group that collects case, death and hospitalization data.

Put another way: 35- to 49-year-old Latinos represent 41.5 percent of people in that age range in California but account for about 74 percent of deaths.

The staggering loss of life at younger ages, plus higher overall mortality rates, is projected to have caused Latinos’ life expectancy nationally to plummet by about three years during 2020, according to a peer-reviewed study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in February. The results were calculated using federal data. The authors of that study, who recently updated their findings, report that Latinos’ reduction in life expectancy was more than three times the loss experienced by the White population. ...

The findings proved all the more stunning because for years researchers had recognized that Latinos in the United States lived longer than White people, despite social, political, economic and environmental factors that typically erode health and shorten lives. This advantage had grown since 2006, when the federal government began separately documenting Latinos’ life expectancy. ...