Hispanic people face higher chance of getting COVID-19 in Colorado

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Hispanic people in Colorado have accounted for a disproportionately high number of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

While the Latino community makes up approximately 20% of the state's total population, they account for around 30% of COVID-19 patients.

Advocates for local Latinos told KRDO the disproportionately high statistics don't surprise them.

"The pandemic is really showing what we already knew. Which is that our communities don't have access to healthcare [and] financial security," said Katherine Riley with the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR).

"We can see the snowball of how one inequity really leads to another," agreed Emily Cervantes with the Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy, & Research Organization (CLLARO).

Cervantes and Riley believe the cause of this disparity can be a number of things.

Hispanic people are also uninsured at a disproportionate rate compared to other ethnicities, which means they're more likely to not be at their top health.

"If we have someone who has diabetes, it might not be properly managed to begin with and COVID just exasperated that problem," Cervantes explained.

In addition to those factors, many Latino families often live with several generations in one home.

"Since they're multi-generational households, chances are that grandma and grandpa are in the home as well and they're at risk," Cervantes continued.

While public health officials have rolled out new messaging campaigns to help with language barriers, Cervantes and Riley think we can all do more.

"Just having care and acknowledgement of what many of our communities are going through I think is the first step," Riley said.

Cervantes and Riley believe the only way to help Hispanic people during the pandemic is to help everyone in need.

"It's really important as a society that we take care of our most vulnerable people," Cervantes said.