Coronavirus Cases by Race in Illinois

Detailed data shows how each race was affected differently in Illinois by COVID-19 from March to June 2020.

With over six million COVID-19 cases in the US at the time of writing, it is without a doubt the pandemic is anything but over. The United States is one of the countries with the most COVID-19 cases. The first reported Corona virus case in Illinois was in earlier January, however communities began seeing the pandemic’s true consequences at the beginning of March. That is when the majority of the United States started experiencing local and nationwide lockdowns.

Although Illinois did a great job in locking down earlier than most states, it is without a doubt that Illinois’ communities were still deeply impacted by the pandemic. More interestingly so, data shows that certain races were far more impacted than others by COVID-19. As seen reported on the Illinois Department of Public Health data, the Latinx community suffered a greater amount of Coronavirus cases from the months of March to June in Illinois compared to any other race. For example, Latinx sufferers of Coronavirus hit peak with about 550 cases at the end of April, compared to less than 50 cases peak at the same date for Asian communities. It is clear there is a huge difference in amount of cases varying from race to race as the chart displays below, question is, why are there such great differences and what will elected public officials do about it?