COVID In The USA: Young Whites From South Making Up Greater Share Of Last 100,000 Deaths

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a scourge for the entirety of the U.S. since it began, but its worst effects have been more discriminating. As the fight against the virus continues, its set of victims has changed from when it began.

In an extensive investigation by NBC News, investigators compared the make-up of the first and the last 100,000 Americans to die as a result of the virus. What their results showed was that the more recent deaths shared a set of characteristics; they were younger, Southern and more white.

In the early days of the pandemic, COVID-19 found its epicenter in New York and other Northeast states. Those who became infected and later died were largely older than 75 with a disproportionate impact on Black, Hispanic and other communities of color as documented by a number of examinations of the pandemic's effects.

However, the NBC News investigation found that of the last 100,000 Americans to die, the proportion of white Americans and those between the ages of 35 and 74 made up a greater share of those lost than at the start of the pandemic.

They found that white people made up 15% of the initial 100,000 deaths, but this number more than doubled to 32% as of Sept. 4 amid the surge in cases of the Delta variant. Deaths among Black people have dropped by 10% in this same range while Hispanics' share of deaths rose by about 5%.

The epicenter also began to shift away from the Northeast and toward the South, with Florida uprooting New York as the state with the most cases of COVID-19. Florida has seen its case numbers drop in recent weeks, but it now has the third-most deaths from the virus.

Experts interviewed by NBC News said that it is difficult to decipher the exact reasons for these differences between racial and ethnic groups. However, others did note that political factors, vaccine hesitancy and the urban-rural divide play a part.

For the last year, there has been a clear political divide over how to deal with COVID-19. Republican politicians have been reluctant to impose public health measures like temporary lockdowns, mask mandates or vaccine mandates compared to Democrats. Misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines by prominent conservative figures has also been a factor throughout the pandemic as well.

President Joe Biden has expressed his frustration with the continued refusal of Americans who reject vaccinations. He implemented a national vaccine mandate via executive order on Sept. 9 to large employers to lead more Americans toward receiving their shot to protect against COVID-19. However, many Republican politicians rejected this mandate and pledged to fight it in court while banning vaccine mandates in their own states.

The death toll from COVID-19 is 743,926 and the percentage of Americans who have received at least one vaccine dose is 78.1%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.