The Virginia Department of Health will begin releasing more comprehensive demographic data on the commonwealth’s coronavirus cases and deaths on Monday. It’s a move that advocates have awaited for months, arguing that without detailed race and ethnicity data, it’s impossible to determine the full impact on the state’s most vulnerable populations.

“We anticipate that starting Monday, June 15, the COVID-19 in Virginia daily dashboard Demographics tab will include an expanded list of race information,” Julie Grimes, a spokeswoman for the Department, wrote in an email. “The following new race categories will be added: Latino, Asian or Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans.”

Virginia began publishing racial information on coronavirus cases in April. But it broke down race into only three categories: Black or African American; white; and “other.” It did not include Hispanic and non-Hispanic ethnicities. Additionally, a sizable number of cases are listed on the state’s website as having racial and ethnic data “not reported.”

“It is absolutely critical to collect this type of data systematically and as completely as possible,” says Dr. Amira Roess, an epidemiologist at George Mason University. “This information helps us to quickly identify disparities and quickly implement effective interventions to reduce disparities. Given the decades of documented health disparities, this information should be automatically collected and not an afterthought.”

‘We don’t know if our communities are actually the ones who are being hit very badly’

Advocates have been concerned about the lack of information about Asian, Latino, and indigenous cases and deaths because it obscures the impact the pandemic could be having on those communities. Hispanic and Latino people make up 9.6 percent of the state’s population, and Asians account for 6.9 percent, according to data from the U.S. Census.

In Northern Virginia, COVID-19 cases have flourished in Latino communities, Hispanic or Latino respondents make up more than 50 percent of all reported cases across the commonwealth, according to VDH data. Still, more than 33,900 results haven’t included race information.

Michelle Chan, an organizer with Asian American Pacific Islander Civic Engagement (ACE) Collaborative and New Virginia Majority, works with low-income, often first- or second-generation Asian American residents in Arlington. She says that more detailed data could help the county make decisions about how to better allocate testing resources and gear outreach to affected communities.

“Because people are not keeping track of this data, we don’t know if our communities are actually the ones who are being hit very badly,” Chan says. “Because it’s not actually in the data, nobody’s going to be able to help our community.”

Chan’s organizing focuses on working-class Afghan, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Nepali, and Mongolian communities in Arlington, especially those living in and around the 22204 ZIP code, a hotspot for COVID-19. Many, she says, are essential workers in supermarkets or drive for ride-hailing companies — jobs that put them at higher risk of exposure.

But she worries that the families she supports aren’t always getting accurate information about COVID-19, particularly due to language barriers.

“Communities of color who are immigrants don’t really get the news in English,” she says. “We try to make sure members know and understand the risks that are involved out there. But it may not be getting through.”

Data on case and death counts by race, she says, could help make the case for more information being available in translation, access to free testing, and other forms of outreach targeted at the communities she works with.

“Oftentimes Asian Americans are just completely forgotten, completely invisible,” Chan says.

Chan says she and other Northern Virginia activists sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Health several weeks ago, expressing their concerns. They also brought up the problem on a community call with Arlington County Board members Christian Dorsey and Matt de Ferranti.

Dorsey acknowledged that county officials had been frustrated by the holes in the state’s coronavirus information.

“The biggest category the state is reporting is ‘not yet reported,’” he told community members on the call. “So we’re having to go in and back-interview everyone to get that information.”

“We do not want the true impact of this virus’s spread through vulnerable communities to be underacknowledged.”

County health departments say the expanded racial data is crucial in their pandemic response, as well.

Arlington County uses the data it already has to “identify where we may need to intervene,” says public information officer Cara O’Donnell: “For example, we have seen more positive cases in ZIP code 22204, which is why we had the 1,000 person testing event last month at Barcroft Community Center in that ZIP code. We’re in the process of planning a second event like that.”

Similarly, Dr. Benjamin Schwartz, Fairfax County’s Health Department’s director of epidemiology and population, says race and ethnicity data is especially useful to pinpoint where increased effort is needed. He says calculating rates of infection and their consequences can help officials reduce disparities.

“In Fairfax County, for example, we have found a substantially higher rate of COVID-19 infection among the Hispanic population,” Schwartz said in an email. “We have used this information to work with the community, local organizations, advocacy groups, and other county agencies to better understand and address the issues that may be contributing to this increased risk.”

But O’Donnell notes that reliance on individual doctors and labs manually inputting demographic data has resulted in delays.

Virginia’s testing data has come under scrutiny before

This isn’t the first time that coronavirus data from the Virginia Department of Health has come under scrutiny. In mid-May, a report from the Richmond-Times Dispatch and a subsequent story in The Atlantic pointed out that the state skewed its data to include both antibody and viral results in order to meet its testing goals. The department has since reported the two separately. (The commonwealth says the inclusion of this antibody testing data wasn’t intentional but due to an automatic computer programming system.)

Another reason for the criticism: VDH has repeatedly reported a backlog of data, citing thousands of results that have been delayed as labs transition to electronic reporting.

Roughly 33 labs report data by fax machine, the department told DCist/WAMU on Thursday.

“New labs are frequently coming on board with COVID-19 testing that aren’t immediately set up to send VDH results electronically,” spokesperson Maria Reppas said in an email.

It’s not clear whether the new information from the Virginia Department of Health will include information dating back to the start of the pandemic, or if the newly-detailed breakdown will only be available moving forward. VDH did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

To Chan, adding a few more race categories to the VDH data is only a first step to understanding the effects of coronavirus on Asian communities in Arlington, because there’s still such a wide diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and countries of origin within the ‘Asian or Pacific Islander’ category.

“They all speak different languages. They all have different experiences. And their socioeconomic experiences are vastly different,” she says.