Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry
Image Credit: Flickr/Province of B.C.
August 17, 2020 - 8:30 AM
New data released by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry shows that Caucasians and higher income earners are doing better when it comes to weathering the storm of changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only 29 per cent of Caucasians have had a harder time meeting their financial needs after COVID-19 hit. That’s the only race charted that was below the provincial average at 32.4 per cent.
On the higher end were West Asian and Arabic people where 44.9 per cent suffered. For Latin Americans, 41.1 per cent had trouble and 40.6 per cent of South Asians struggled.
A similar pattern held true for those who are not working due to COVID-19 with only 14 per cent of Caucasians in that situation. Again that was the only group below the provincial average of 15.5 per cent. Hardest hit were Latin Americans at 22.6 per cent.
Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control
That information comes from a survey called the B.C. COVID-19 Population Health Survey: Your Story, Our Future that was filled out by about 394,000 people and presented to the media by Dr. Henry yesterday, Aug. 13.
Racial differences were not so dramatic when it came to families with school aged children who reported impaired learning.
The provincial average was 76.1 per cent reporting problems. Only two groups were above that average, Chinese at 81 per cent and Japanese/Korean at 78.2 per cent. Caucasians were at 75.7 per cent while Blacks fared best at 72.3 per cent.
School aged children experiencing the most stress were in Latin American/Hispanic homes at 62.1 per cent while Chinese children were the least stressed at 46.7 per cent.
Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control
Lower income residents have been hit the hardest on many fronts due to COVID-19.
For those earning less than $20,000, 51.1 per cent said it was harder to meet financial needs and 24.5 per cent were not working due to COVID-19.
But, only 24.3 per cent of those earning more than $140,000 had increased trouble meeting their financial needs and a mere 9.2 per cent were not working.
Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control
But it's not a perfect world, even if you are rich. In households with school aged children, 83.3 per cent of the highest earners reported decreased connections with friends versus 64.8 per cent of the low income families.
Image Credit: Submitted/B.C. Centre for Disease Control
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