In collaboration with Ong & Associates, this CNK report is centered on the temporal pattern of the pandemic, the resulting shelter-in-place mandates, and the emerging research on pandemic impacts on minority-owned businesses.

While previous studies have documented the pandemic’s impacts in marginalized neighborhoods on labor and housing markets, the report focuses on small businesses. This case study examines whether the COVID-19 crisis disproportionately impacted local businesses in ethnic neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Answers to this question provide academic insights on racial systemic inequality and inform policy interventions. If the disparities are significant, there are profound policy implications—race-conscious government efforts to address systemic racism are needed to ensure an equitable economic recovery.

Location data from SafeGraph are used to analyze foot traffic patterns to restaurants and retail locations in ethnic and comparison neighborhoods from February through September 2020. The results indicate an earlier and steeper decline in commercial activity in Chinatown and, while retail was resilient in ethnic neighborhoods, restaurants suffered greater declines on average than in comparison neighborhoods.

Overall, the ethnic neighborhoods collectively performed worse than the county as a whole prior to lockdown and performed no better than the county under shelter-in- place orders. This study contributes to the growing body of research around the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on communities of color and recommends data-driven policy solutions to inform assistance and recovery policies and programs.

Done in collaboration with the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, this report compares the overall Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) death and vaccination rates of Latinos and non-Hispanic whites (NH Whites) and describes the geographic pattern of these rates across neighborhoods in New York City (NYC). As the first major epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, NYC is an important case study. During the initial three months of the pandemic, there were 203,000 confirmed cases with a crude fatality rate of 9.2 percent overall and 32.1 percent among those hospitalized. NYC is home to 2.6 percent of the nation’s population, but 5.7 percent of the nation’s COVID-related deaths occurred there.

The available data on the pandemic reveal that Latinos were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 infections, hospitalization, and deaths. Given this disparity, prioritizing this population for vaccination is critically important. The effort should focus on immunizing individuals in predominantly Latino neighborhoods to lower contagion risk, given that elevated risks are associated with both individual and neighborhood characteristics. To assess whether vaccines are adequately reaching this population, we analyze available data to compare outcomes for Latinos and NH Whites (see Appendix on the pdf of the report for a more detailed discussion on specific data and methods).