Speaker 1: (00:00)
During the first year of the COVID pandemic, the catch phrase, we're all in this together was everywhere. But as soon became clear that some of us were much more in this than others. Statistics revealed wide disparities in who was getting sick, where most people were catching the virus and what activities put people most at risk. Now in an in-depth investigative report by voice of San Diego, looking at more than 4,000 death certificates of San Diego who died from COVID, those disparities are clearer than ever joining me as voice of San Diego reporter will Hansberry who with fellow reporters, Jesse Marks and Bella Ross examined San Diego deaths in the first year of COVID. And we'll welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: (00:45)
Thanks for having me, Maureen,
Speaker 1: (00:47)
The headline in your report is, is startling. It says a college degree was an insurance policy against death. Can you explain what that means?
Speaker 2: (00:56)
We don't know exactly why it is, but literally having a bachelor's degree meant you are much less likely to die from COVID-19 in San Diego and quite possibly across the United States. You know, um, people with a bachelor's degree, for whatever reason were super insulated from the worst effects and partially maybe that's because they weren't doing essential work, let's say, but then again, you know, we know that most people who died were retired age, so that's not totally it. Maybe it's also telling us something about poverty and that people who have more education tend to make more money. But, you know, if you had a bachelor's degree, you were were more than half as less likely to die as someone who didn't. And like you said, I just think that's really startling. And, and we didn't have a handle on that level of detail about the disparity until now
Speaker 1: (01:51)
We start out examining COVID deaths through the lens of education levels.
Speaker 2: (01:56)
We didn't necessarily start there. Um, we made a public records request for every death certificate during the first year, um, of the pandemic for all COVID related deaths, because we really, you know, we thought it was going to be, we thought we knew something was going to come of it. And we thought it was important to bear witness to this terrible death toll, you know, 4,000 people in a year in San Diego county. And then we discovered that those death certificates were really rich with information about education level, about the job a person had about, um, where they were born, whether it was in the United States or not. And so once we started crunching those numbers, you know, we just found some really, uh, uniquely shocking and, and even terrifying stuff.
Speaker 1: (02:45)
Now, in your report, you profile a few of the people who died of COVID last year. Can you tell us a story of Gregory Denny of humble
Speaker 2: (02:55)
Gregory Denny? He was a 48 year old security at Taylor guitars in alcohol, but he was not your average, 48 year old. Um, he was actually working on finishing his bachelor's degree. He was married. He had a couple of kids. He he'd served in the Gulf wars and in the summer of 2020, he wasn't finished with that bachelor's degree yet. And he came down with COVID. He was hospitalized and put in the ICU. And unfortunately like so many people, he was killed by this virus. And with Mr. Denny, the university he was studying at, they actually awarded him his bachelors posthumously because he hadn't finished it. And so he was a member of the graduating class of 2021. And you know, his story is really powerful. I'm certainly not saying that had he finish that bachelor's degree? He, he would have, um, you know, not died from COVID, but this was the working age man. He was 48 years old. And you know, people with bachelor's degrees were much more likely to be able to stay at home. And when other people were at home, he was working his security guard job. And, and that is where his wife thinks he, he contracted COVID
Speaker 1: (04:09)
Then many ways to frame the difference in COVID death rates among populations. Another one is in the second part of your report, finding that more than half of the San Diego ones who died were immigrants. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: (04:23)
Yeah. We found so many disparities in these statistics that were big and scary, and I think we all knew there were these disparities, but we just didn't understand what a fine point was on it. I mean, in San Diego county, 23% of people are immigrants, but among those who died from COVID 52% were immigrants. So there's this really huge disparity just like with bachelor's degrees. And we don't totally understand it. There could be a lot of reasons that immigrants were more at risk. They were more likely to live in multi-generational housing. They're more likely to speak a different language and maybe they weren't getting good information about COVID in their native language. The other statistic that was really shocking was people without a high school diploma, you know, among immigrants who died 50% did not have a high school diploma among non-immigrants just 10% did not have a high school diploma. So, you know, education again seems to be a really important variable here.
Speaker 1: (05:22)
The biggest risk factor of death though remains among the elderly population. Doesn't it
Speaker 2: (05:28)
That's right. The median age was 76. You know, we know that COVID-19 hits old people much harder than young people and our database shows that too, but, but out of 4,000 deaths, you know, we also see in our database that a thousand people were working age, they were 65 or younger. So, you know, I don't think most people think of dying before they're finished with their working age. And that's what happened to 25% of the people in our database.
Speaker 1: (05:58)
Now you hinted, uh, that's one of the reasons that could account for this education level disparity, even though many of the people who died were already retired is a chronic disparity in health results. For people who are rich and poor and white and people of color. Can you tell us how that might have contributed to the higher death toll?
Speaker 2: (06:21)
You know, we've heard of a couple really COVID specific things, right? Maybe you're more, you were more likely to work in essential labor. You're more likely to ride the bus and that put you more in harm's way, but there's even like deeper issues at play about chronic illnesses like diabetes and, um, hypertension and heart disease in the poorest neighborhoods in San Diego. It's very hard to find a healthy grocery store. There's no Vons, there's no trader Joe's, there's definitely not a whole foods. And so it's harder to eat well, and that means you're more likely to get diabetes. And what's also true about those areas is they're less walkable. It's harder to get exercise. There's less parks. That means you're more likely to be obese. You know, all of these chronic conditions made it much more likely for a person to die from COVID in our database, 80% of the people who died had a chronic health condition, but even just one layer deeper Maureen, just the stress of poverty itself seems to put people at risk. We know that poor children have higher blood pressures than their peers and, you know, high blood pressure leads to hypertension. And that can cause heart attack and stroke and hypertension itself puts you more at risk with COVID. And so, you know, the layers of how poverty interacts with this disease are, are deeply interwoven.
Speaker 1: (07:42)
Now, you know, I suppose if you ask, most people eat on the street, they'd readily tell you that wealthier people get better medical care and are more protected from contagious disease, then poor people. So that in and of itself is not a shocking revelation. So what significance do you think this report has about the disparities and COVID deaths between rich and poor? Yeah,
Speaker 2: (08:06)
I'm really glad you asked that question actually. And I think you're right. I think people are aware that there have been disparities with COVID, but I think we were hearing a lot of that information over and over again during the height of the pandemic. And I think people were really overwhelmed, you know, um, and burnt out even on news at a certain point, you know, they were all personally going through something different. We were difficult. We were globally going through something difficult and awful. And I think now is a good time to revisit the impact of, of the, you know, the worst part of the pandemic we saw in that first year at a time when people can actually like absorb those disparities and think about their own communities, look around them and say, you know, wow, people in certain zip codes did really well.
Speaker 2: (09:00)
You know, and people in other ones did really badly. And, and, and not just by a little bit. And I think that has the potential to drive decision-making in the future about public policy, around health decisions, you know, where to put testing centers for, for, uh, in a pandemic where to put vaccine centers, we should be putting them in the poorest areas. Uh, and we should be unequivocal about that because I think our data shows that, you know, you don't need those support things nearly as much in the richer neighborhoods. And so I think, um, I think it's a good time for us to re-look at this and absorb it and, you know, hopefully it can drive public policy in the future.
Speaker 1: (09:45)
You can find voice of San Diego series of reports on COVID deaths, on their website, voice of San diego.org. And I've been speaking to voice of San Diego reporter will Hansberry will. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: (09:59)
Thanks Maureen.
