Hogan commits to producing racial breakdown of coronavirus cases

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) committed to producing coronavirus data broken down by race and ethnicity as soon as this week as calls grow for such numbers in the face of reports that COVID-19 is taking a disproportionally large toll on black and Latino communities.

“Governor Hogan has directed [the Maryland Health Department] to immediately take actions to provide further demographic breakdowns of all Maryland case data, including hospitalization rates and mortality,” press secretary Kata Hall announced Tuesday.

6) ***Governor Hogan has directed @MDHealthDept to immediately take actions to provide further demographic breakdowns of all Maryland case data, including hospitalization rates and mortality. Wants the department to be as proactive as possible with this.

— Kata D. Hall (@katadhall) April 7, 2020

Last week, the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus sent a letter to Hogan asking him to direct the state health department to produce data broken down by race in its coronavirus reports.

Their request came as other states, such as Michigan and Illinois, began reporting data that showed black people in their states are significantly more likely to contract and die from COVID-19. 

At the time, Hogan said collecting such data is difficult because they rely on private labs to produce that information, which Hall said is still an issue that is being worked out. 

“Beginning *this week* the state will publish everything that is available to us on racial and ethnic breakdowns on #COVID19 cases,” Hall tweeted. “Governor Hogan cautions that we may see some initial gaps in the data that is available, given that much of our testing is through private labs.”