These Maps Show How Drastically COVID-19 Risk Varies By Neighborhood

TIME

One of the scariest parts of the coronavirus pandemic is the idea that anyone could get infected at any time. With the virus circulating as widely as it is, anyone could be unlucky.

But while we are all at risk of COVID-19 infection, we are not all at equal risk. You’re clearly more likely to get sick if you live in an area currently experiencing a surge in cases, like Florida, Arizona and Texas. But even within the same city, your risk of getting infected is deeply tied to where you live.

New data from the City Health Dashboard, a project run by New York University Langone Health, shows how drastically the risk of COVID-19 infection can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within the same city—a reflection of how strongly socioeconomic factors affect who gets sick and who stays healthy.

Race, for example, has been a powerful predictor of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths across the country, with people of color bearing a disproportionate burden in all three categories. Black and Latino Americans are three times more likely than white Americans to get infected with COVID-19, according to a New York Times analysis of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. People of American Indian/Native Alaskan descent have the nation’s highest rates of COVID-19 hospitalization, followed by Black, Hispanic, Asian and white Americans, in that order.