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You value and rely on the work of the APM Research Lab. And we rely on you, especially
during this difficult time. If you can, please support our work with a donation today.

Our ongoing Color of Coronavirus project monitors how and where COVID-19 mortality is inequitably impacting certain communities-to guide policy and community responses to these disproportionate deaths. The coronavirus has claimed more than 240,000 American lives through Nov. 10, 2020-nearly 25,000 more than our last update four weeks ago. We have documented the race and ethnicity for 96% of the cumulative deaths in the United States.

Our latest update reveals that Black and Indigenous Americans continue to suffer the greatest loss of life-with both groups now experiencing a COVID-19 death toll exceeding 1 in 1,000 nationally.

We also adjust these mortality rates for differences in the age distribution of populations, a common and important tool that health researchers use to compare diseases that affect age groups differently. At the national level, this results in even larger documented mortality disparities- Black, Indigenous and Latino Americans all have a COVID-19 death rate of triple or more White Americans, who experience the lowest age-adjusted rates.

The APM Research Lab has independently compiled these death statistics. ( Learn more about how.) The result is the most robust and up-to-date portrait of COVID-19 mortality by race available anywhere, with a lens on inequitable deaths. We are now presenting mortality data over time for all states -not just cumulatively-to help us monitor the virus' changing impacts throughout fall and winter. We have been tracking these deaths for seven months now, revealing COVID-19's growing toll on all Americans, but with the heaviest losses among Black, Indigenous and Latino Americans.

KEY FINDINGS (from data through Nov. 10):

Of the more than 240,000 U.S. deaths catalogued in this Color of Coronavirus update, this is the number of deaths documented by group through Nov. 10, 2020: Asian (8,687), Black (46,211), Indigenous (2,251), Latino (46,912), Pacific Islander (334) and White (123,429). Additionally, 5,373 deaths are recorded only as "other" race (and likely include more Indigenous people and Pacific Islanders), while another 8,510 had an unknown race.

In the past four weeks, the death rate among Indigenous people has accelerated the fastest (shown by a steeper slope in the graph above).

These are the documented, nationwide actual mortality impacts from COVID-19 data (aggregated from all U.S. states and the District of Columbia) for all race groups:

1 in 875 Black Americans has died (or 114.3 deaths per 100,000)

1 in 925 Indigenous Americans has died (or 108.3 deaths per 100,000)

1 in 1,275 Latino Americans has died (or 78.5 deaths per 100,000)

1 in 1,325 Pacific Islander Americans has died (or 75.5 deaths per 100,000)

1 in 1,625 White Americans has died (or 61.7 deaths per 100,000)

1 in 2,100 Asian Americans has died (or 47.6 deaths per 100,000)

Black Americans continue to experience the highest actual COVID-19 mortality rates nationwide-about two or more times as high as the rate for Whites and Asians, who have the lowest actual rates. Indigenous Americans' death rate is just slightly lower than Blacks.

If they had died of COVID-19 at the same actual
rate as White Americans, about 21,200 Black,
10,000 Latino, 1,000 Indigenous and 70 Pacific Islander Americans would still be alive.

Adjusting the data for age differences in race groups widens the gap in the overall mortality rates between all other groups and Whites, who have the lowest rate. It also reveals that Indigenous people have suffered the greatest losses, accounting for age differences, followed closely by Blacks and Latinos. Compared to Whites, the latest U.S. age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rate for:

Indigenous people is 3.2 times as high

Blacks is 3.0 times as high

Latinos is 3.0 times as high

Pacific Islanders is 2.3 times as high, and

Asians is 1.1 times as high.

(A fuller discussion of our indirectly age-adjusted rates follows.)

HOW TO EXAMINE THE DATA:

1. EXPLORE CUMULATIVE MORTALITY RATES BY GEOGRAPHY, COMPARING GROUPS

We've presented the data we've collected for the nation overall and each state as:

2. EXPLORE NUMBER OF DEATHS OR RATES OVER TIME, COMPARING GROUPS

Explore actual mortality rates and total deaths by race and ethnicity for any state or Washington, D.C., beginning in early June 2020.

3. EXPLORE CUMULATIVE FINDINGS BY GROUP, COMPARING GEOGRAPHIES

Examine the differences for one group at a time across all states with available data. For each group, we provide contextual data and a visual comparison against White Americans' rates using the age-adjusted data, to examine where disparities relative to Whites are the greatest.
For more context about the shortcomings of some of the data, please read our note about Indigenous, Pacific Islander, Multiracial and Other Race Americans. If you'd like to examine the percentage of deaths compared to the percentage of population by racial group for each state (which previously appeared on this site), you can find this data in our complete data file.

&plus; Understanding Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates

Click to read more

While there are many features of the novel coronavirus that are still unclear, this we know with certainty: The risk of dying from COVID-19 rises sharply with advanced age. Fewer than 4 in 100,000 Americans under age 45 have died from the virus, according to data submitted to the CDC through Oct. 31. The COVID-19 death rate for Americans age 45-54 rises to 28 per 100,000; more than doubles for those age 55-64 (65 per 100,000); and more than doubles again among those age 65-74 (154 per 100,000). Among Americans age 75 and older, the death toll is exceedingly high: 571 people per 100,000, as shown below.

Due to this steep age gradient to COVID-19 mortality, it is important to consider the varying age distributions of America's racial and ethnic groups. A higher share of White Americans are in the older age brackets than any other group. To illustrate this, consider that the median age of non-Hispanic White Americans is 44 years, according to the latest Census Bureau data. The comparable figure for all populations of color is considerably lower-for Asians (37), Blacks (34), Pacific Islanders (33), Indigenous (32) and especially Latinos (30), half of whom have not yet reached their 30th birthday.

Even within the same race groups, the age distribution varies-with retirement destination states such as Florida having a much higher share of older adults within their White population, for example.

Black, Indigenous and Latino Americans all have a COVID-19 death rate of triple or more the rate of White Americans (age-adjusted).

So, to remove the role of age differences from COVID-19 mortality rates, we have also produced age-adjusted rates. Because mortality data is not available for all states by race and age jointly (which is preferred), we have used indirect standardization to calculate these rates. See our NOTES section for details and cautions about our method.

Adjusting the racial data we've collected for age differences increases the COVID-19 mortality rate for all racial and ethnic groups except for Whites, who experience a decrease, as shown below. Latinos' rate rises the most following age-adjustment, revealing that the virus is impacting Latinos far more than would be expected based on their youhtful age profile.

After age-adjusting, the gap between Black and White mortality widens-from 1.9 to 3.0 times as high. Relative to Whites, mortality rates for Indigenous people also rise to 3.2 times as high (the highest rate) and Latinos to 3.0 times as high. Rates for Pacific Islanders also grow, to 2.3 times as high as Whites. Finally, the Asian mortality rate-which was slightly below the White rate-rises slightly above the White death rate (1.1 times as high), when age is taken into account. Put another way, Indigenous, Black and Latino Americans all have COVID-19 death rates of triple or more the rate of White Americans (age-adjusted).

What does this mean? It indicates that many younger Americans who are Black, Latino, Indigenous or Pacific Islanders are dying of COVID-19-driving their mortality rates far above White Americans'. Despite their relative youthfulness (a protective factor against COVID), their death rates are elevated. As Brookings Institution has reported, "In every age category, Black people are dying from COVID at roughly the same rate as White people more than a decade older."

It is important to note that, while age-adjusted mortality rates help us remove the influence of age differences in racial groups to examine disparities in outcomes, they are not the actual mortality rates experienced by these groups.

CUMULATIVE MORTALITY RATES

Review cumulative mortality rates-both actual and age-adjusted-for the District of Columbia or any state by changing the dropdown menu below. Rates were not calculated when there were fewer than 15 deaths for a particular group (resulting in a "0" value in the graph below). Rates for Indigenous and Pacific Islander residents could only be calculated for some states. Additionally, rates were not calculated for multiracial people, nor those identified as "Other" race.

ACTUAL MORTALITY RATES OVER TIME

REPORTED DEATHS BY RACE & ETHNICITY OVER TIME

Explore how the distribution of American lives lost varies by race and ethnicity for all states, beginning with totals in early June. Select a state to see the cumulative trend graphed similarly.

Users can examine the cumulative death totals, grouped by racial and ethnic group, for their state(s) of interest below. Depending on the geography, the "Other" group in this graph may include Indigenous people, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders, Multiracial people, those identified as "Other" race, and in a few cases, Asians. (This is due to uneven reporting by states.) Please see the notes below the graph, or request our complete data file for additional information.

Search by state

(Use Shift + Ctrl to select more than one state)

COVID-19 deaths by race and ethnicity, through Nov. 10, 2020

FOCUS ON BLACK AMERICANS

Lives lost to date

Actual mortality rate

Age-adjusted mortality rate

NOTE ABOUT INDIGENOUS, PACIFIC ISLANDER, MULTIRACIAL & OTHER RACE AMERICANS

COVID-19 mortality data for Americans who are Indigenous, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders, Some Other race, or Multiracial is inconsistently reported by many states. Users may request our complete data file to better understand the loss of life in these groups as well. Users are cautioned that Indigenous and Pacific Islander people appear in the "Other" group in many states, along with Multiracial Americans and in a few cases, Asian Americans. We continue to advocate for complete, consistent reporting for all racial and ethnic groups.

HOW DID THE APM RESEARCH LAB OBTAIN THE DATA?

The APM Research Lab has independently compiled and analyzed these mortality data for Washington, D.C. and all states. At the time of this writing, only North Dakota and West Virginia did not yet publicly release COVID-19 mortality data by race and ethnicity on their state health department websites. For these two states, we have supplemented our data file using data reported to the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the CDC. Note that these data have some time lag and often suppress data (i.e., hide for privacy's sake), especially for groups other than Whites. Nonetheless, their inclusion improves the picture of COVID-19 mortality for the entire United States.

In the case where a state is publicly releasing its mortality data, but the CDC data was found to be more robust, we have also opted to use the CDC data. This is the case for the following states: Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas, as well as the balance of New York outside of New York City (which is reported separately). The result is the most comprehensive and up-to-date portrait of COVID-19 mortality by race and ethnicity for the U.S.

Racial detail on Americans who have died of COVID-19 was available for 96% of all deaths to date-a vast improvement from the 38% that were known when our Color of Coronavirus project began tracking these data in early April.

As of Tuesday, Nov. 10, more than 240,000 Americans had died of COVID-19. Data about race and ethnicity is available for 96% of these deaths.

However, it should be noted that even among states releasing COVID-19 data by the race of the deceased, the data is often incomplete or nonuniform. Numerous states release only percentages, not counts of deaths, requiring us to estimate the data rather than know precisely how communities have been affected. Many states also fail to report smaller populations uniquely, obscuring the picture for Indigenous Americans, Pacific Islanders and other groups. All of these reporting shortcomings render our picture of the virus' toll incomplete and make it more difficult to assess the disproportionate impacts on communities.
We call on state and local health departments to release timely data about COVID-19 deaths with as complete racial and ethnic detail as is possible. As the data reporting improves, so too will our understanding of the devastating impact of this disease. This will inform states and communities about how to direct resources more equitably as well.

SOURCES

State and local health department or other governmental reporting bodies, and the National Center for Health Statistics. In a few cases, we have upwardly revised total counts of deaths (not by race) to conform with the New York Times' latest database. Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2018 American Community Survey were used for calculations regarding population by race/ethnicity and age. Importantly, we have aligned population data with each geography's method of collecting and reporting data (i.e., if Latino ethnicity is overlapping with race groups or discrete, and whether race groups are reported "alone" or "alone or in combination"). All calculations and subsequent analysis by APM Research Lab.

NOTES

Deaths of unknown race are excluded prior to calculating percentages and rates. Presumed or probable deaths due to COVID-19 are included here in our death counts. Many of the data sources have labeled their data preliminary. In some cases, percentages will differ from those given by health departments due to our method of excluding deaths with an unknown race from the denominator before calculating percentages. Additionally states employ varying collection methods regarding ethnicity data, which results in percentages summing to more than 100%. Where states have reported only percentages, we have estimated deaths by racial subgroups; these deaths may differ by small amounts from actual due to rounding errors. States can improve this reporting by releasing complete data.
Data for Indigenous, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders, and other races are tallied separately in some states, but exist in "other" in other states, due to inconsistent reporting among states.

Mortality rates are presented in two ways on this page: 1) As "crude" rates, meaning no adjustment has been made to standardize varying age distributions in the populations. These are labeled "actual mortality rates," as they reflect the actual death rates experienced in the population groups. 2) As indirectly age-adjusted mortality rates. Because the White population is older on balance in nearly all locations, age-adjusting generally widens disparities between Whites and other populations.
To create our age-adjusted death rates by race and ethnicity, we first calculated an "expected" death rate for each race group by state and the nation overall. We did so by multiplying the latest national age-specific death rates from COVID-19 by age-specific population shares for each race group within each of the geographies (sourced from the 2018 American Community Survey). We then divided the crude death rates for each race and geography by the expected race-based death rate we calculated (resulting in Standard Mortality Ratios), and finally multiplied by the nationwide overall crude death rate. The result is an Indirect Adjusted Death Rate (IADR) of COVID-19 by race.

We indirectly adjusted these data for age because direct age-adjustment was not possible; timely and complete COVID-19 mortality data by race and age group is not being released for all or even most states. However, users are cautioned that indirect standardization is done to approximate the impact resulting from varying age distributions in cases because age-specific death rates are not available. Indirect standardization may deviate more from directly age-adjusted rates when comparing two populations that differ significantly in their age distribution, as race groups may. For this reason, data from individual states that are directly age-adjusted should be considered superior. For more on direct and indirect methods of standardization see this CDC publication.

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COVID-19 deaths analyzed by race and ethnicity - APM Research Lab

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COVID-19 has claimed more than 240,000 lives in the U.S. This page documents and analyzes all racial and ethnic background data for COVID-19 deaths by state and the nation-especially to track the disproportionate mortality impacts of the coronavirus for Black, Latino, Indigenous and other Americans

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1. donate to a charity/homeless center
2. stay at home and social distance
3. encourage others to do the same

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virus

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Death Tolls From Covid-19