Pandemic imperiled non-English speakers more than others In March 2020, just weeks into the Covid-19 pandemic, the incident command center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston was scrambling to understand this deadly new disease. It appeared to be killing more Black and brown patients than whites. For Latinos, there was an additional warning sign: language. Patients who didn’t speak much, or any, English had a 35% greater chance of death. Clinicians who couldn’t communicate clearly with patients in the hospital’s Covid units noticed it was affecting outcomes. “We had an inkling that language was going to be an issue early on,” said Dr. Karthik Sivashanker, then Brigham’s medical director for quality, safety and equity. “We were getting safety reports saying language is a problem.”