Comparing coronavirus cases in Mass. cities shows wide disparities

As the coronavirus spreads through the United States, dozens of cities and states have reported clear disparities in infection and death rates among different races and types of workers.

Those inequalities, while striking and important, have been difficult to cover in Massachusetts, where public health officials claim patient confidentiality prevents them from sharing the number of cases and deaths in individual cities and towns. The statewide data the Department of Public Health does release has missing racial data for more than 65 percent of cases.

In an effort to bring more transparency to the communities hit hardest by the coronavirus, The Enterprise is compiling the number of coronavirus cases in the state’s 40 largest municipalities each week, all of which have defied the state’s recommendations by reporting their own data.

At first glance, the results are striking. Chelsea, Brockton and Lawrence - all cities where the majority of the population is non-white - have the highest reported rates of infection in Massachusetts. All three cities rank near the bottom of the state in average income and have a higher number of people living in the average household.

Brockton ranked second in the state after adjusting the number of coronavirus cases relative to the population, higher than Boston and every city except Chelsea.

There are, however, important caveats to consider before drawing conclusions from the data.

Without a uniform set of standards for reporting coronavirus data, many cities and towns have come to count their case totals in different ways. For instance, some municipalities remove recovered and deceased patients from their tallies, while others do not.

Wherever possible, The Enterprise has reported the running total of cases confirmed in a city since Feb. 1, the day Massachusetts announced its first case of the coronavirus. Recovered and deceased patients are included in those numbers.

Another important factor to consider is that cities and towns have varying levels of access to coronavirus test kits, meaning that some communities have tested a larger share of their residents than others, and therefore report a higher rate of infection. At this time, few municipalities have released information on the number of patients they are testing, and it’s widely understood that only a fraction of infected patients get tested.

However, the available numbers, which underestimate the true totals of infected people in every community, can still offer a useful, real-time comparison between Massachusetts’ 40 largest cities and towns.

An economic and public policy research group at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute has designed a series of interactive infographics that combine The Enterprise’s data with demographic information from the US Census Bureau, offering the clearest picture yet of how race, poverty and other factors correlate with a community’s exposure to the deadly virus in Massachusetts.

Staff writer Ben Berke compiled the coronavirus data from 40 municipalities. Abby Raisz, a researcher at the UMass Donahue Institute, created the interactive graphics.