A latest Office for National Statistics analysis has found that ethnic minorities' higher risk of dying from Covid-19 is not related to pre-existing or underlying health issues. Instead they are more vulnerable to the virus owing to where they live and the jobs they do, figures for England and Wales suggest.
The ONS also found that all ethnic minority groups, other than Chinese, are more likely to die than white people with black African men and black Caribbean women at the highest risk. The ONS looked at the total number of people in each community in England and Wales whose death involved Covid-19 and the recent figures are based on deaths up to the end of July.
Key findings of the ONS included:
- Black African, black Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were nearly twice as likely as white women to have died with Covid-19.
- Black African, black Caribbean and Bangladeshi men were more than twice as likely (and Pakistani men nearly twice as likely) as white men to have died with Covid-19.
- Men and women from Indian mixed ethnicity communities were roughly 50-75% more likely to die with Covid-19 than white men and women.
- In care homes, men of Asian background and women of black and Asian background had a higher rate of death involving Covid-19 compared to white people, after taking account of geography and health measures.
The ONS has also found that although some existing health problems put people at greater risk of being seriously ill and dying from Covid-19, that could not explain differences in death rates among ethnic minorities. Instead, the differences were more likely to be caused by demographic and socio-economic factors, such as where people live and the kind of jobs they do.
