Filipino COVID-19 Deaths – Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA)

Filipinos had the second highest mortality rate in the county during the pandemic’s first year — but that cost was largely hidden because the county reported cases and deaths among Filipinos within a broad category of Asian Americans, rather than breaking them out specifically.

In San Diego County, Filipinos accounted for about 7 percent of the 4,000 COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic’s first year, while they make up roughly 6.5 percent of the county population. That made Filipinos the third largest nationality for pandemic deaths in the county during that time.

Filipinos faced a unique set of risks. Many Filipinos work in the health care sector or in other essential, high-risk employment, like in assisted living facilities. They also tend to live in multigenerational households, and suffer from certain health conditions that increase morbidity with COVID, like diabetes and hypertension. The majority of Filipinos who died, 92 percent, were immigrants, while only 8 percent were U.S.-born.

But because Filipino deaths and cases weren’t specifically tracked by the county – grouped instead with other Asian nationalities, which had lower numbers of cases and deaths – community advocates and researchers said that the community didn’t get the support and resources it needed.

By Carlos Irwin A. Oronce

STAT News

Oct. 11, 2021

Aggregated data covers up the gross inequalities faced by specific demographics within the broad and diverse umbrella category of “Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.” 20% of nurses in CA are Filipinx and they’ve been hit hard by the for-profit motivated “just in time” policies in hospitals. These greedy policies have led to many unnecessary deaths as front-line COVID-19 nurses haven’t been provided adequate personal protection equipment to contend with the virus. Nationally, while 4 percent of registered nurses nationwide are Pinay, they account for about 25 percent of Covid-19 deaths among registered nurses.

PANA is doing its part to educate people about the realities behind the numbers and shares this article from STAT news: https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/11/health-disparities-filipinxs-in-health-care-are-disguised-data-aggregation/

Since the outset of the pandemic, it has become abundantly clear that social and economic factors shaped by the U.S.’s history of structural racism have caused disproportionate numbers of deaths among racial and ethnic minority groups due to Covid-19. Lost in the conversation have been the experiences of Asian American communities, and Filipinxs in particular.

While the official numbers show that Asian Americans have lower death rates from Covid-19, the few states in which data are broken out by Asian ethnicity reveal sharply higher proportions of Filipinxs who have contracted the disease and died from it. In Hawaii, Filipinxs make up 16% of the population but more than 20% of Covid-related deaths. In California, where Filipinxs make up 20% of nonelderly Asian adults, they make up 42% of Covid deaths in that category.

Filipinos had the second highest mortality rate in the county during the pandemic’s first year — but that cost was largely hidden because the county reported cases and deaths among Filipinos within a broad category of Asian Americans, rather than breaking them out specifically.

Read the Voices of San Diego article HERE.