Why Langley Park has been hit hard by COVID-19

Langley Park is a vibrant community in Prince George’s County where you can buy homemade pupusas, Indian Saris, and real shea butter. The low-income, majority-Latinx neighborhood has also been ravaged by the novel coronavirus—at a rate that’s disproportionate to other communities across the state.

Examining life in Langley Park can help us understand why the virus hits some places harder than others. It also reveals how holes in social safety nets widen during times of health crisis.

Prince George’s County gets hit hard by COVID-19

They say life isn’t fair, and neither is the novel coronavirus. In Maryland, which as of mid-July has recorded 80,836 cases of COVID-19 and 3,281 deaths, some jurisdictions have been largely unscathed while others have been ravaged by the pandemic.

Prince George’s county, for example, has had 605 times as many cases as Garrett County. Statewide, the county has more COVID-19 cases per capita (22.72 per 1,000 people) than any other jurisdiction and the second highest number of deaths (.772 per 1,000).

Similar to the trend taking place across the county, COVID-19 has also been particularly hard on Maryland’s African American and Latinx residents. While the two groups make up just over a third of the state’s total population, they account for over half its COVID-19 cases (Latinx comprise 8.15% of the total state population and account for 26.01% of state cases; African Americans account for 29% of the state’s population and make up 40.71% of its deaths). By contrast, white residents are the state’s largest racial group at 54.7%, but only 20.97% of state cases and 42.32% of state deaths are white residents.

Although Prince George’s County doesn’t report its COVID-19 data by race and ethnicity, we can estimate if the virus is having a disproportionate effect on certain groups by looking at the racial composition of zip codes with the highest number of cases. Currently, the three zip codes with the highest rate of cases are 20783 (Adelphi, Langley Park, College Park), 20782 (Hyattsville), and 20706 (Lanham).

The share of the Latinx population in two of these zip codes is substantially higher than the state as a whole. In 20782, the Latinx share of the population is twice (33.7%) the share for the county as a whole; in 20783 it is more than three times as large (59.4%).

When I asked Prince George’s District 2 Councilmember Deni Taveras, whose district encompasses most of both zip codes, why the county wasn’t publishing cases or deaths by race and ethnicity, she said: “That’s a good question. We should have this data and I’ve asked for it, but I haven’t gotten a response. We also have to do better in the geocoding of the data so we can get a more accurate reflection of where cases are happening.”

The discrepancies in cases may tie to how people live

There’s still a lot that we don’t know about COVID-19, so it’s hard to say why Latinx residents are contracting the virus at higher rates. But some of it can be attributed to where and how they tend to live in the county.

• Population density doesn’t, by itself, drive the location of COVID-19 hotspots. Prince George’s county, for example, is less dense than Baltimore, but has more infections and deaths. The 20782 and 20783 zip codes happen to be the densest subregions inside the beltway, with 8,200 people per square mile—a third larger than the second largest subregion. When combined with other factors such as overcrowded housing, a high proportion of essential workers, and limited health infrastructure, density can lead to conditions ripe for disease transmission.

• Councilmember Taveras told me that Latinx residents in her district “are living in severely overcrowded housing.” In areas with high population density, people tend to live in smaller homes—apartments rather than houses. Almost three-quarters of households in Langley Park are renters.

• Because Langley Park is classified as a low-income community, it’s common to see large families living in small spaces. According to the Census Bureau, the neighborhood’s average household size is four people. This means that families of four often crowd into one-bedroom apartments, while larger families squeeze into two-bedroom units. Even those who own their own homes often rent out rooms.

• Staying at home is also harder for many Latinx families. They’ve continued working because they need to pay their rent and feed their families. And their work is often on the front lines in places like grocery stores and other retailers, hospitals, and construction sites.

• Even those who lost their jobs can find it difficult to stay inside a small apartment with three or four other people day after day. Teenagers, especially, find it difficult. Many continue to play soccer — a contact sport — on neighborhood pitches despite the pandemic. It may be one of the few chances they have to get out of cramped apartments and get some exercise.

These factors provide multiple vectors for the virus to spread. If someone gets sick in a family, it’s virtually impossible for them to quarantine at a safe distance from other family members, meaning that the virus often spreads to everyone in the household.

Councilmember Taveras told me that she’s seen a lot of cases “where both parents ended up in the hospital and another family member has to come and take care of them,” creating another vector of transmission.

An already frayed social safety net has worsed during the pandemic

When the pandemic began in March of this year, Prince George’s County’s ratio of physicians to residents was already lower than other Maryland counties of similar size in wealth. The county’s social safety net infrastructure was also limited and constrained.

Researchers believe the long history of racial and ethnic disparity compounds these gaps. People of color have poor health outcomes even when they are middle and upper class and live in wealthy counties. All of this means the county was not as well positioned as it could have been to fight the spread of the virus.

For Langley Park, these problems are compounded by the fact that most social services in Prince George’s County are not available to undocumented residents. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 79,000 such immigrants in Prince George’s County, 70% of whom hail from Central America. Latinx residents in Councilmember Taveras’ district are often afraid to go to the hospital because they are undocumented.

Although hospital officials are not supposed to ask about citizenship, immigrants have little reason to trust authorities after nearly four years of harsh, inhumane language about immigrants from President Trump and many others.

Some Latinx have papers, but lack health insurance. As a result, when they get sick with COVID-19 and finally do go to the hospital, they are in bad shape. “They often go straight into the ICU,” Taveras explained.

Councilmember Taveras also noted that testing is just coming to her district. She said that cases in the Latinx community peaked in April but they didn’t get a testing site until mid to end of June. Therefore, there isn’t good data to go on. She also said that the tests Governor Hogan and his wife secured from South Korea were taken to Six Flags in Upper Marlboro, Md. “That’s not where the cases were at that time, it’s not where they were peaking. I feel like I have to beg for everything I get,” she said.

The councilmember hopes more aid will be forthcoming, but she also knows her constituents need to eat and pay their rent. She said two local churches, Saint Camillus and Beltsville Seventh Day Adventist, are taking donations. Those who want to help folks in District 2 can ask that their donations be used for rental and utility assistance programs in District 2.