‘US Covid-19 cases, deaths increase with higher income inequality’

Washington, Jan 26 : A new study has revealed that US counties with higher income inequality faced higher rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths in the first 200 days of the pandemic.
The study by researchers at the University of Illinois (UI) and issued on Monday included 3,141 of 3,142 counties in the US with available data, with the remaining county excluded due to incomplete information, Xinhua news agency reported.
The 200 days for which they collected data spanned from January 22, 2020, when the first case was confirmed in the US, to August 8, 2020.
The researchers found that a 1 per cent increase in a county’s Black population corresponded to an average 1.9 per cent increase in infections and a 2.6 per cent increase in mortality due to Covid-19.
A 1 per cent increase in a county’s Hispanic population corresponded to an average 2.4 per cent increase in incidence and a 1.9 per cent increase in mortality.
A 1 per cent rise in a county’s income inequality, as determined by a research measure called the Gini index, corresponded to an average 2 per cent rise in Covid-19 incidence and a 3 per cent rise in mortality.