Detailed data on the race of coronavirus patients and deaths have been showing an inordinate number of Black people.
What We Know:
- The racial disparity led the surgeon general on Tuesday to acknowledge the increased risk for African Americans amid growing demands that public-health officials release more data on the race of those who are sick, hospitalized, and dying of a contagion that has killed more than 12,000 people in the United States.
- Data analysis have shown census that counties that are majority-black have three times the rate of infections and almost six times the rate of deaths as counties where white residents are in the majority.
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Black people, on average, have higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) noted that those health problems make people more vulnerable to COVID-19.
- The racial disparity between health and wellness in the United States is well documented but the pandemic has brought these disparities vividly into focus.
- In response to the new data, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated: “Inequality is a comorbidity,” and “COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations”.
- On Tuesday, Dr. Fauci advised that the crisis is “shining a bright light on how unacceptable” those disparities are. “There is nothing we can do about it right now except to try and give” African Americans “the best possible care to avoid complications”.
A CDC spokesman said Tuesday that the agency plans to include COVID-19 hospitalizations by race and ethnicity in its next Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities.
Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions.
Inequality is a comorbidity. COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 3, 2020
