In April, two major news stories broke that assumed new trends in COVID-19 victims. The first is the “new kind of patient” according to CNN: young, previously healthy, and now sick or even hospitalized with COVID. The number of these patients has been increasing nationwide, especially in Michigan. The second story pertains to young children who have lost parents to COVID. And as the Journal of the American Medical Association – Pediatrics recently explained, these children will need social and psychological support for years to come.
Many were essential workers, infected in the restaurants or factories where they were worked out of economic necessity. Others were infected by their own family members in close-quartered, multigenerational homes.
Despite these high rates, the young Latino COVID patient has never been the center of attention. But when that same patient emerged in states such as Michigan—only white—it became a national story.
Marina Del Rios, MD, is an emergency physician. She was one of the first people in Chicago to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
