截至2020年6月，冠状病毒大流行已导致美国超过230万例确诊感染和12.1万人死亡，不同种族和民族的发病率截然不同。我们的研究调查了六个不同城市——亚特兰大、巴尔的摩、芝加哥、纽约市、圣地亚哥和圣路易斯——在邮政编码层面(涵盖436个“社区”，人口1770万)的COVID-19确诊病例的种族和民族差异。我们的分析将这些结果与六个独立的数据源联系起来，以控制人口统计;住房;社会经济地位;占领;交通模式;获得保健服务;以收入流动性和监禁率衡量的长期机会;人类迁移; and underlying population health. We find that the proportions of black and Hispanic residents in a ZIP code are both positively and statistically significantly associated with COVID-19 cases per capita. The magnitudes are sizeable for both black and Hispanic, but even larger for Hispanic. Although some of these disparities can be explained by differences in long-run opportunity, human mobility, and demographics, most of the disparities remain unexplained even after including an extensive list of covariates related to possible mechanisms. For two cities – Chicago and New York – we also examine COVID-19 fatalities, finding that differences in confirmed COVID-19 cases explain the majority of the observed disparities in fatalities. In other words, the higher death toll of COVID-19 in predominantly black and Hispanic communities mostly reflects higher case rates, rather than higher fatality rates for confirmed cases.