On Jan. 6, the Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs (CAPAA) announced the release of its 2020 Community Demography report. The report provides demographic information of Asian, Native Hawaiʻian, and Pacific Islander (ANHPI) racial and ethnic groups based upon the 2020 census data and was disaggregated using microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey (ACS).
Despite Washington State being the original epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States, the state has not released detailed demographic data around infections and deaths from COVID-19, lagging behind several states and counties throughout the country. King County released detailed demographic data around infections and deaths from COVID-19 on April 10, but the data is only from 51 percent of confirmed cases.
The King County data available shows that cases of the disease are highest among non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders, but that deaths are highest among white people. This available data is not consistent with what other areas of the U.S. are reporting –– that Black communities are at a disproportionately higher risk of death from the disease –– or with what some local critical care providers are seeing on the frontlines.
