“Unknown” Race Cases in Hawaii on the Rise
In this graph of Covid cases in Hawaii over time, two things are immediately visible: Hawaii experienced a major spike in cases among all race in late July/August, and that for the majority of those cases, the race of patients is unknown. As we have learned, data is not necessarily objective — it is created by the people who gather, enter, and analyze it. It would be interesting to investigate what happened in Hawaii in August that led to race data being ignored or not collected.
In the data where race is collected, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders make up a disproportionately large number of Hawaii’s covid cases. Native Hawaiian activists are now pushing the state to release the remaining race data, to determine what happened and if the trend continues. An interesting story idea would be to delve into this breakdown of reporting and find out what happened here. It might also be interesting to look into the major hospitals and see how they report this data, and how a major spike in cases would have overwhelmed the system to this degree.
Sources:
- Hawaii Dept. of Health epidemiologists
- Hawaii covid contract tracing investigators
- Staff at Hawaii hospitals who enter and work with covid data
- Activists with the group We Are Oceania, who are funding a helpline for Native Hawaiians
Length: 800-1200 words