COVID besieges Filipino, Vietnamese Americans in Bay Area

Coronavirus has besieged Filipino, Vietnamese Americans in Bay Area

Dec. 31, 2020 8:06 AM PT

SAN FRANCISCO — Filipino Americans and Vietnamese Americans are being hit harder by the coronavirus than other Asian Americans in Silicon Valley.

The rate of new coronavirus cases among residents of Vietnamese and Filipino descent is rising faster than among other Asian groups, Santa Clara County’s health officer, Dr. Sara Cody, said recently.

Vietnamese Americans accounted for 28% of coronavirus cases among Asian Americans in Santa Clara County between June 1 and Dec. 3, yet they make up 19% of the population of Asian Americans in the county, according to slides Cody presented at a Board of Supervisors meeting earlier this month.

Filipino Americans, 13% of the Asian American population in the county, accounted for 21% of such cases during the same time period.

By contrast, Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Korean Americans and Japanese Americans were underrepresented in their share of coronavirus cases among Asian Americans.

Among all racial and ethnic groups, Latino residents have the highest per capita coronavirus case rate in Santa Clara County — more than 4,000 coronavirus cases per 100,000 Latino residents over the late spring, summer and fall, over six times the rate of its white residents.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the county also have experienced a disproportionately high coronavirus case rate of nearly 3,000 cases per 100,000 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander residents, quadruple the coronavirus case rate of white residents.

Black residents experienced double the case rate of white residents, with nearly 1,600 cases per 100,000 Black residents. White residents experienced not quite 700 cases per 100,000 white residents.

Asian Americans as a group were observed to have nearly 800 coronavirus cases per 100,000 Asian American residents.