Coronavirus in Massachusetts
We acknowledge that it's important to look at COVID-19 data through an equity lens, and we will be working to do this as the data becomes available. Having data by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, language, disability status, age, and geography will help us understand where the burden of disease is falling, and thus more effectively respond to COVID-19 and support our communities. PHIWM is advocating for expanded demographic data collection about COVID-19.
Data Should be Interpreted with Caution
It is important to examine data to understand racial and ethnic inequities related to COVID-19 so that action can be taken to address inequities. National level data has demonstrated inequities among communities of color and though these inequities likely exist in many places across the country, Massachusetts testing data collected to date should be interpreted cautiously. Race and ethnicity data was not initially collected for cases, so data being examined has a large percentage who were missing race and ethnicity and were classified as "unknown". In addition, testing has been very limited due to shortages in availability of testing materials, and many people who may have had the disease were not able to be tested. Thus, the percent testing positive is dependent on who is tested and not necessarily reflective of the distribution of COVID-19 in the general population.
For up-to-date coronavirus data, visit these sites:
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health COVID-19 Cases in Massachusetts and Data Dashboard
- UMASS Donahue Institute's Data Dash: Visualizing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on MA's communities of color and urban areas
- Johns Hopkins University interactive web-based dashboard to visualize and track reported cases by country and by US states and counties in real time.
- Kaiser Family Foundation COVID-19 Coronavirus Tracker, interactive web-based dashboard to visualize and track cases and death counts by country
- New York Times Map and Case Count: View number of cases and deaths by country, state, and county.
- COVID Racial Data Tracker: a partnership between the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center.
Data Archive
