Coronavirus Live Updates: N.Y. Posts Its Largest Daily Death Toll, and Trump Effectively Ousts Relief Funds’ Watchdog

African-Americans are suffering virus infections at disturbing rates in some of the largest cities and states in the United States, emerging statistics show.

In Louisiana, about 70 percent of the people who have died are African-American, though only a third of the state’s population is black. In the county around Milwaukee, where 27 percent of residents are black, nearly twice as many African-American residents tested positive for the virus as white people. And in Chicago, where African-American residents make up a little less than a third of the population, more than half of those found to have the virus are black, and African-Americans make up 72 percent of those who have died of the virus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday at a White House briefing that the figures were concerning. He said diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma disproportionately affect African-Americans, and that patients with these diseases and coronavirus often have bad outcomes.

“It’s very sad,” Dr. Fauci said. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now except try and get them the best possible care to avoid those complications.”

Data on the race of those sickened by the virus has only been made public in a handful of places and is too limited to make sweeping conclusions. But racial disparities in cases and outcomes, researchers said, reflect what happens when a viral pandemic is layered on top of entrenched inequalities.

The data, researchers said, is partly explained by factors that could make black Americans more vulnerable in any outbreak: They are less likely to be insured, more likely to already have health conditions and more likely to be denied testing and treatment. There is also the highly infectious nature of the virus in a society where black Americans disproportionately hold jobs that do not allow them to stay at home, the researchers said.

“If you walk outside and see who is actually still working,” said Elaine Nsoesie, of Boston University’s School of Public Health, “the data don’t seem surprising.”