COVID-19 deaths nearly double in poorest U.S. counties: Study

Americans in the poorest 10% of U.S. counties were nearly twice as likely to die of COVID-19 as those living in the richest 10% of counties, according to a new study.

The study, which the Poor People’s Campaign advocacy group released Monday at the National Press Club, found that the 300 counties with the highest coronavirus death rates during the pandemic had a poverty rate of 45%, one-and-a-half times higher than in counties with lower death rates.

According to the study, death rates in the poorest counties shot up even higher during the worst waves of the pandemic.

Death rates were four-and-a-half times higher during the winter of 2020-2021, five times higher during the delta variant and nearly three times higher during the omicron variant.

“Average vaccination rates are generally higher in the highest income counties than in middle-and low-income counties, however, these differences do not explain the whole variation in death rates in the later phases of the pandemic,” the study stated.

Race was tied more strongly than vaccination status to death rates, researchers found, with the poorest counties averaging more than twice the Black population of higher-income counties.

Six researchers from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Howard University School of Education, the Poor People’s Campaign, the Repairers of the Breach, and the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice collaborated on the study.

Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, SDSN president, said in a statement that the study shows how COVID-19 was “a failure of social justice” for “the poor, women and people of color.”

“The poor were America’s essential workers, on the front lines, saving lives and also incurring disease and death,” Mr. Sachs said. “This pandemic report aims to shed light on the unequal burden of the pandemic, and to help point the way towards a fairer, healthier and more prosperous nation.”

Looking at income and death data from more than 3,200 U.S. counties, the study found that several of the counties with the highest death tolls were in sparsely-populated areas of Georgia, Texas and Virginia.

Hancock County, Georgia, where the median income is $31,860 and 73% of the population is Black, had a death rate of 1,029 per 100,000 people.

In Texas, tiny Motley County has a median income of $3,859 and a COVID-19 death rate of 1,000 per 100,000 residents. About one-fifth of the population is Hispanic.

Emporia, an independent city in Virginia surrounded by Greensville County, has a death rate of 917 per 100,000 people and a median income of $27,063.

For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.