Are We Testing Those That Need It Most? Analyzing COVID-19 Testing and Outcomes across Income and Race in New York City.

Abstract

New York City has seen a great deal of COVID-19 cases and deaths since the first positive test in March. This paper analyzes ZIP-code level COVID-19 outcomes with 2018 American Community Survey neighborhood data. I find residents of poor ZIP-codes and ZIP-codes with a greater fraction of the population identifying as black are more likely to test positive, more likely to die, and less likely to get tested for the virus. Such raises questions of how the virus spreads, how testing is allocated, and whether the cost of testing is different across different socioeconomic groups.