This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

On March 10, Loretta Mendoza Dionisio became the first person in Los Angeles County known to have died of COVID-19.

Dionisio was 68, had diabetes and had just returned from a trip to her native Philippines. That made her a precursor of the coming pandemic in more ways than one.

For a variety of reasons, Filipino Americans have been hit hard by the novel coronavirus. People with roots in the Philippines account for about one-quarter of the Asian Americans in California, yet data compiled by The Times show that Filipino Americans account for at least 35% of COVID-19 deaths in the state’s Asian population.

Of 48 Filipino Americans known to have been infected with COVID-19 in Southern California, 19 have died, according to the Philippine Consulate General of Los Angeles. Although the data may be skewed by a small sample size, this puts Filipino Americans at a 40% mortality rate, significantly higher than the overall 3.7% mortality rate in the U.S., according to research by Johns Hopkins.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

USC professor Adrian De Leon, in front of a mural in L.A.'s Filipinotown in this 2020 photo, is looking at ways the pandemic affects Americans across racial and socioeconomic lines. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
USC professor Adrian De Leon, in front of a mural in L.A.’s Filipinotown in this 2020 photo, is looking at ways the pandemic affects Americans across racial and socioeconomic lines. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)