Latinas make up almost one-half of all COVID-19 cases among pregnant women

We can add another statistic to the mounting evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is impacting non-white communities substantially more than white ones. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that almost one-half of all COVID-19 cases among pregnant women in this nation are in Hispanic or Latina women—despite Latina women making up only about one-quarter of all pregnancies.

The Washington Post reports that in many communities, it's worse than that. The Post notes that a group of nonprofit Washington-area health clinics serving majority-Latino customers found 70% of pregnant women tested were positive for the virus.

What's going on? It's not immediately clear, but there are suspicions. Like Black American women, Latina women disproportionally work in "essential" services, in jobs that remain open during the pandemic and are therefore at higher risk. They are more likely to have lower incomes, and therefore more likely to live in denser housing. There's still no clear difference in susceptibility being measured between groups (though men do seem more susceptible than women), but America continues to be a segregated society. The risks of contagion are not, in all jobs and neighborhoods, even close to equal.