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Comment by babesh | Hacker News Reader

It is spreading fast amongst the Latino population and more slowly amongst other populations. In SF, Latinos are over 50% of the cases now. In San Mateo, it is closing in on 50% of the cases as well.

A couple of weeks ago, the number of Latino cases in San Mateo was about the same as the Asian and white groups. It is now over triple.

https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/fjki-2fab

https://www.smchealth.org/san-mateo-county-covid-19-and-othe...

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why is the latino population seeing large number of cases?

I would venture, insular communities and bad luck. Maybe also something to do with cultural mores around visiting family when sick, or insufficient "how to mask/distance/etc" materials in Spanish.

I think it's like Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID, before it was AIDS). There's no inherent reason that it showed up predominantly in the gay male population, except a) the first superspreader was a gay airline steward (so he had lots of contacts with the gay community all over the country), and b) gay men were enjoying the fruits of their sexual revolution.

If you think about it, monogamy is basically an extreme form of "sexual distancing", and so a non-monogamous community is much more likely to have an outbreak of an STD. Other non-monogamous communities heavily promote wearing masks (condoms), but as this had been viewed primarily as a way to prevent pregnancy, the gay community did not think it was necessary.

I think it's just because hispanic people are poorer and thus more likely to be essential workers.

In SF, I've heard that a good percentage of the latin population will share rent-controlled places 12 to a room. I think it's more common they are living in tight quarters.

Overcrowding. Multiple families sharing apartments is typical of low income areas in CA.

It's almost like it's spilling over from Mexico into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and S California, and moving north from LA.

Many outlying areas of Mexico appear to be out of control. Chihuahua, for example, has a 21% fatality rate.

“Part of what’s driving the soaring case loads in Imperial County is the influx of positive patients from Mexico. State officials say they’re primarily US citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom live in neighboring Baja, crossing back in search of superior health care.

The county has by far the state’s highest case numbers on a per capita basis, 3,414 per 100,000, as well as a positivity rate for tests that’s more than four times the state average.“

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/30/1004696/theres-n...

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