Coronavirus cases surge among younger Californians

The recent surge in the spread of the coronavirus in California is hitting younger people harder than the initial outbreak earlier this year, according to the latest data from the California Department of Public Health.

Like many states, California is seeing a resurgence of coronavirus cases in recent weeks. Confirmed cases have more than doubled in the last month, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

In March, about half of California’s new infections were identified among people ages 18 to 49, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times. So far this month, about two-thirds of new infections have been diagnosed among that age group, even though only 45{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of Californians fall into that age range.

The virus is also hitting Black and Latino people harder than White Californians. As of Tuesday, Latino people accounted for 55{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of coronavirus cases and 43{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of deaths in the state, while making up about 39 percent of the state’s population, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

Black Californians account for 9{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of the state’s deaths, while making up about 6{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of the overall population.

Those numbers may not tell the whole story; more than a third of confirmed cases are missing race and ethnicity data.