FORT WORTH, Texas — In the nine months since children started becoming hospitalized with COVID-19 at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, a troubling trend has emerged.
The hospital says of the 181 its coronavirus patients they had through October, 96 were Hispanic. That’s 53%, while Hispanic people make up only 30% of Tarrant County’s total population.
“It did sadden me to see we're seeing the trend in kids the way we're seeing it in adults,” said pediatrician Bianka Soria-Olmos, a Fort Worth native.
Overall, Hispanic people account for 26% of coronavirus diagnoses in Tarrant County, according to the county data. But that may not tell the whole story: 37% of COVID-19 cases come from people whose ethnicity was not reported.
Dr. Soria-Olmos says the reasons for the disproportionate number of hospitalizations of Hispanic children are not entirely clear.
“They are likely at higher risk for a number of reasons,” she said, “one of which you'd have to think is a lot of the jobs that their parents hold have not allowed those parents to transition their jobs to their home, so since March they've basically had to leave their home even though the kids were out of school.”
Soria-Olmos also worries about extended families getting together in this time, which is not recommended.
“Me knowing how important gatherings are to the Hispanic community, I know how hard it can be basically to hear that advice and then follow through with it,” she said.
Dr. Vida Amin said in a Cook Children's article that families interacting has led to spikes in other countries, such as young adults in Italy returning home to their grandparents' houses on the weekends.
“Hispanic families are more likely to have multiple generations living under one roof," Amin said in the article.
Several Tarrant County organizations are "working tirelessly to care for the Hispanic population" during the coronavirus pandemic, said Leah King, president and CEO of United Way of Tarrant County.
“It's just really heart-wrenching to see such disproportionate impact on one population,” King said.