Public Health updates death data on COVID-19 Dashboard

Kern County’s COVID-19 death data is updated when sufficient data accumulates to prevent identification of the deceased. While this data is a tool to help our community better understand the impacts of this disease, it is our responsibility to adhere to HIPAA guidelines and ensure patient privacy.

COVID-19 death data is reviewed biweekly to determine if we have met the criteria set forth by our HIPAA statistician to release more information related to these deaths. Our last update to local death data occurred on April 20, 2021.

As of September 17, Kern County has had 1,515 deaths due to COVID-19. Below are key findings in the updated COVID-19 death data:

• Ages 65+ continue to be the most affected age group, accounting for 64.09% of all deaths. This is a decrease from 65.7% on the previous update. The 65+ group is still very disproportionately affected as it only makes up 11.6% of Kern’s population according to CA Department of Finance 2020 population projection and only 8.71% of reported cases.

• The majority of deaths continue to have comorbidities. Hypertension and diabetes are the two most common. Only 45 deaths have been reported with no comorbidities.

• Hispanics account for 56.4%, down from 57.6%, of COVID deaths. The CA Department of Finance population projection for 2020 has Hispanics at 52.6% of the population making this the most disproportionately affected race. African Americans make up 6.0% of the population and have 5.3% of the deaths, which is unchanged from the previous update. The other category has increased from 6.9% to 7.3%. This is still proportionate as the proportion of the population in Kern is 7.4% for the other category. Whites are less affected having 34% of the population but only 31.0% of deaths.

• Males account for 60.2%, a decrease from the previous of 61.0% of deaths. Males are more affected as they only account for 50.8% of the population.

To view the updated COVID-19 dashboard, visit our COVID-19 webpage at http://www.kernpublichealth.com/2019-novel-coronavirus/.